Politics

What It Takes to Make Ends Meet In San Diego

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published June 24, 2010 at 10:53 AM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

A research group finds that to make ends meet in San Diego, a single adult needs to earn nearly twice the state’s eight dollars an hour minimum wage. Families need to earn much more.

A research group finds that, to make ends meet in San Diego, a single adult needs to earn nearly twice the state’s minimum wage. The California Budget Project - a non profit agency researching issues affecting low and middle income families - also analyzed what families need to get by.

The report calculates that a two parent working family with two children would have to earn $77,000 a year in San Diego to meet basic expenses, including rent and health care. And that does not include saving for retirement!

Jean Ross of the California Budget Project says child care is almost 20 percent of the budget. She says low income families will be particularly hard hit if the state cuts child care subsidies to balance the budget.

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"In many instances," Ross said, "they literally won’t be able to afford to go to work if they don’t have a safe, quality place to leave a young child during the day."

The report shows that recent state tax increases disproportionately affect low income families.

Ross says the only bright spot in this year’s analysis is the falling cost of housing statewide.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.