Study: Las Vegas tough on single parents

Monday, March 11, 2002 | 11:52 a.m.

The high cost of child care and the low amount of available subsidies make it difficult for poor single-parent families in Las Vegas to support themselves, a new study says.

The "Self-Sufficiency Standard for Nevada," released today by the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, found that although the Las Vegas area was one of the more affordable of 16 cities studied, there is less help available to pay for child care than in other states.

A single parent raising a preschooler and a school-age child needed to make $15.78 an hour in Las Vegas to make ends meet with no outside help, the study found. Only Billings, Mont., was less for such a family, at $14.68 an hour. San Francisco topped the list at $25.89.

"Child care is a big proportion of the budget of families with young children in all the places we look at," the study's lead author, Diana Pearce of the University of Washington, said. "In Las Vegas, we found the help available to meet those child-care costs -- $924 a month in Las Vegas -- are not as generous" as in other places.

The state's average hourly wage is $15.09 an hour, and families beneath the self-sufficient income levels often pay more than half their income on housing and child care, Pearce said.

Subsidized child-care programs in Las Vegas require a working mom spend 25 percent of her income on child care, Pearce said. Most other states require much lower monthly co-payments, the study found. For example, a mother with two children who works full-time earning $8.50 an hour is required to pay $66 a month in Indiana for day care, but $198 a month in Nevada. Indiana offered the lowest child care co-payments.

If the mother's wages go up to $12 an hour, she pays $132 per month in Indiana, but $554 a month in Nevada.

In addition, only 20 percent of eligible Nevada children receive child-care assistance, the study said.

The group, a coalition of 44 labor, professional and human resources organizations, says that the federal poverty standards do not reflect the cost of basic services, from housing and food to transportation and child care.

Its calculations for self-sufficient incomes do not include food stamps, babysitting by friends or family or medical care provided by federal of state funds, Pearce said.

The self-sufficiency standard is a way to measure the economic health of poor families since 1996 congressional welfare reforms, she said.

Even though Las Vegas was not an expensive city to live in, it also was not the least expensive to meet basic family needs, Pearce said.

Struggling families will scrimp on food and child care to get by, the study said.

"We're talking about no take-out food, no pizzas, no Happy Meals, not even a cup of coffee," Pearce said.

A national review of earnings across the country is needed, the study said. "We should really measure what it takes to live with basic necessities covered," Pearce said.

The report does not place the blame on employers. Instead, it suggests ways for states to improve family outlooks, including better income for available work, public and private subsidies to lower child care costs and accessible education and training, PLAN's Executive Director Paul Brown said.

"We need to look at the state and what employees are paid here," Brown said.

"I think the report just shows how tough it is out there," Brown said. "In the case of child care, I think people get by with substandard care, maybe friends helping, maybe neighbors helping, but no quality day care."