Many families in our community find themselves paddling madly just to stay afloat as they attempt to meet the basic costs of housing, food, transportation, health care and taxes.
In 2010, 21,353 county households (20.3%) had incomes of $49,999 or less; another 13,693 (15.4%) fell into the $50,000–$74,999 income range. In 2011, a Howard County household with one adult and two school-aged children needed an annual income of $73,073 to cover its basic needs. That translates to an hourly wage of $35. A single adult needed a job paying $17 an hour; a household with two adults and one preschooler needed to earn almost $37 an hour.
A recent report, “Making Ends Meet in Howard County,” looked specifically at households considered “the working poor,” or those earning up to $31,517. While 18% of the low-income wage earners worked in management or professional occupations, the other 82% worked in the service, sales and office, construction and repair, and production and transportation industries.
But whether holding a blue, pink or white collar job, a “working poor” household in Howard County cannot survive on $31,000 a year; nor can that adult with two children, nor the mom and dad with a preschooler, meet their basic day-to-day needs even with higher incomes.
The Paradox
Living in a county rich in economic, social and cultural opportunity comes with a paradox. On the one hand our economy has been and will continue to be fueled by brainpower — jobs requiring highly skilled, often technical and scientific, expertise. On the other hand, our community’s economy and high standard of living — the reason we all want to live here and the reason it costs so much to live here — also require the fuel of the jobs that support those high-skill industries and the requirements of everyday living and lifestyles.
So how do we help grow and support the county economy while helping 35,000 families become more stable, self-sufficient and greater contributors — economically and socially — to our, and their, community?
Certainly there is cause to examine current wage levels. But of equal importance is consideration of how our community can help assure that there are employment pathways that lead to higher incomes and that these pathways are accessible to men and women seeking to rise above the day-to-day struggle of making ends meet.
‘New Thinking’ Required
Observations made by “Making Ends Meet” report researchers Marsha Schachtel and Shelley Spruill (Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies) suggest that our community needs to grow its investment in the human capital of its low-income wage earners.
They state: “The Howard County economy within which low-income wage earners must find success runs on brainpower. The continued success of the Howard County economy depends on a deep well of talent capable of mastering the skills of today and learning the skills needed tomorrow. The simple answers are education and training … the experiences of workforce specialists suggest that making it possible for individuals and families under financial stress to devote the necessary energy to investing in themselves requires new thinking by all of us.”
The investment and new thinking is a community-wide issue that requires community-wide attention. The collective and collaborative responsibility of increasing earning power rests with the county’s corporate, nonprofit, education and government sectors.
We need more corporate innovation, such as E-Structors’ new certified internship program that provides entry-level workers with the training and experience necessary to become skilled in electronic recycling, computer repair and maintenance. We need to explore course offerings at the community college, technical institutions and high schools that will enable families to build the skills required in this high-talent environment.
We need to find what is working in other communities across the country that creates career ladders for low-income wage earners. We need to find a way to better connect motivated workers with the rich array of education and training resources already available in Howard County.
Schachtel and Spruill note that Howard County’s working poor are both victimized and blessed by its high-cost–high-talent opportunity environment. But the victimization stretches well beyond the working poor. The data show that even Howard County’s families making $75,000 can struggle to financially survive.
Making more money is one answer to making ends meet in Howard County. It is our community’s responsibility to create employment pathways supported by education and training opportunities accessible to all county residents to ensure that they are not just staying afloat.
Jackie Eng is a Howard County resident and currently serves as a member of the Bridges to Housing Stability board of directors and president of the Association of Community Services board of directors. She can be reached at jacqueline.eng@verizon.net.
