Battling Poverty in the Golden State

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The Census’s 2009 poverty data revealed that 43.6 million Americans or 14.3 percent lived in poverty last year. This is the largest number since the Census started keeping track in 1959. Moreover, more than 100 million Americans or 33 percent were low income, barely scraping by and living below 200 percent of poverty, or $44,000 a year for a family of four. The Recovery Act averted an even greater crisis by keeping millions of Americans afloat last year. But these numbers demand urgent action to rebuild our middle class.

Even before the Great Recession persistent poverty spurred many states to develop action plans for dramatic poverty reduction. Many states established state poverty commissions or set poverty reduction goals that bring stakeholders around a common vision for creating greater economic opportunity. These bodies are often based out of the state legislatures in partnership with nonprofit and private-sector partners. They recognize that to comprehensively grow the state’s economy and ensure competitiveness they have to tackle poverty. Since 2003 around 20 state governments have established a commission and fully 10 states have set a poverty target according to a Center for Law and Social Policy analysis.

Severe fiscal crises have challenged many of these efforts. States are struggling to maintain current services and programs in the recession—never mind think about a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty. Yet it is exactly during times of economic distress that states must convene stakeholders to stop the bleeding and provide a vision to move forward.

California is the latest state to undertake such an effort. They recently suffered deep budget cuts that slashed antipoverty programs. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut nearly $1 billion from the state budget in October 2010—much of it from programs that serve low-income families. The CalWORKs program, California’s version of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, suffered a crushing cut of $256 million, including cuts to child care for working families. Still, the County Welfare Directors Association of California is moving forward with a plan to convene a statewide symposium on poverty to explore demographic and regional concerns, policy solutions, and best practices. The plan was conceived even before the most recent budget cuts.

This is not the first time California has sought to develop a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty. The 2006 California legislature passed a measure to halve child poverty by 2016 and eliminate it entirely by 2026. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed the target-setting measure but advocates and some legislators remain undaunted. In the intervening years versions of the bill were introduced and in the last legislative session the California Economic Security Task Force bill called for cutting poverty in half by 2020.

The measure hasn’t passed, but advocates are moving forward on many fronts. They are reaching out to the public to broaden the base of advocates for building up the middle class and reducing poverty.

We offer the following best practices and strategies learned from other state poverty commissions in anticipation of the upcoming California Poverty Symposium.

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