Step Up Silicon Valley acknowledges that poverty in Santa Clara County is greater than just the Federal Poverty Level. The Campaign to Cut Poverty uses the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Standard to measure poverty. This standard was developed by the Insight Center and describes what it means to be self-sufficient in Santa Clara County. Self-sufficiency included many variables like rent, food, child care, health care, transportation, and taxes, and enough money to save and build assets for the future.
Statistics based on Issues
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Food - Hunger Nearly half of the low-income people living here go hungry sometime during each month. It's estimated that 54% of eligible residents of Santa Clara County don't access the Food Stamp Program, representing a potential loss of more than $83 million in federal assistance annually. Learn More » |
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Housing The high cost of housing is one of the largest contributors to poverty in Santa Clara County. In the City of San José alone, as many as 20,000 households may be at risk of homelessness. A worker needs to make $24 an hour, full-time, in order to afford the average rent on a two-bedroom apartment. Learn More » |
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Healthcare Poor health is a major cause of poverty, and lack of medical insurance is a major contributor to poor health. Poor families are often forced to cut back or eliminate spending on medicine and doctor visits in order to eat and pay the rent. Learn More » |
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Education Families in poverty face significant challenges in education and employment training. Child literacy remains divided along economic, language, and racial and ethnic lines. Low-income learners struggle with below-average achievement rates and diminishing prospects for higher education. A large majority of low-wage workers and CalWORKs (also known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) participants have less than a high school education. Learn More » |
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Income - Family Economic Security To move out of poverty, the poor need ways to increrased their earnings and save for the future. In Santa Clara County two adults with a pre-school and school age child would need to earn $68,430 a year to make ends meet; this is more than three times the Federal Poverty Level which is $21,200 for the same-sized family. Learn More » |