It became apparent to the Commission on Poverty after a brief time into its inquiries, that poor women experience their own unique set of problems in overcoming poverty. These include: low earning capacity and the absence of economies of scale, low levels of public assistance benefits (AFDC benefits in particular), inadequate and irregular child support payments, and the lack of affordable child care and health care. Equally soon, the Commission became aware of the fact that current government programs do not fully address several major needs of impoverished men.

Admittedly, some of the difficulties observed by the Commission are not entirely limited to one gender. Many of them, however, are more frequently experienced by females than males, and vice versa. Rural women in poverty also encounter a unique set of barriers to self-sufficiency. These problems are the subject of this chapter.

Poor, single mothers are especially disadvantaged since their child-rearing responsibility can easily result in economic and social hardships for their families. Low-earnings capacity and the absence of economies of scale are common problems associated with single mother families. As Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan explain, these families experience greater economic difficulty since only the mother is able to work and care for her children unlike a two-parent family in which both parents are usually able to share these responsibilities and pool their earnings. This absence of an economy of scale is worsened by the continuing wage gap between female and male workers. "Although the wage gap among full-time workers narrowed during the 1980s, women still earn only 69 percent as much as men ... "

The low level of support provided by public assistance programs is an additional problem. According to Garfinkel and McLanahan, "Most single mothers must be poor in order to qualify for government benefits" offered by programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, Medicaid and public housing. These programs are means-tested and, as some argue, provide a disincentive to work by removing benefits as a recipient draws income from employment. Instead of choosing to work (and risk losing all government benefits), the recipient continues drawing benefits which do not lift the family out of poverty. Garfinkel and McLanahan describe the single mother's dilemma:

In effect, single mothers with low earnings capacity are forced to choose between (1) working full time, living at or near the poverty line, possibly going without medical care, and having no time for their children; and (2) not working, living below the poverty line, having Medicaid, and having time with their children.

Kentucky's AFDC Program gradually reduces benefits (when a recipient finds employment) under what is known as the "ratable reduction" system. The full payment for which the recipient originally qualified is continued during the first 4 months of employment. The recipient will receive reduced cash payments over the next 8 months. As a recipient's earnings from employment increase, cash benefits will be totally withdrawn, but the individual may still be eligible for food stamps and Medical Assistance for up to one year. Although this system works for the one year period, for many it fails in the long run. (See Chapter 5 for a discussion of the state's AFDC Program, with recommendations.)

Another problem involves the absence of child-support payments. "Only six of ten mothers potentially eligible for child support actually have such an award. Of those who have an award, only half receive the full amount to which they are entitled, and over a quarter receive nothing." According to the Division of Child Support Enforcement in the Cabinet for Human Resources, payments from an average of slightly less than 46,000 reported cases of child support are collected each month in Kentucky, at an average payment of $235. In FY 94, $129.3 million in child support payments was collected through the state's system. (Private payments, made outside of the state's collection system, are not reported.)

While on its face, $129 million in child support is an impressive figure, it pales in significance when compared with the $818 million, accumulated since 1976, which should have been collected, but wasn't. In fairness to the Commonwealth's efforts, it should be pointed out that of the $129 million collected in FY 94, $101 million represented current year support, and only $151 million of the uncollected amount was for current year payments. (In FY 95, Kentucky collected a total of $140.1 million in child support payments, of which $108.9 million was for the current year. Uncollected payments for the same year totaled $130.5 million.)

Child support collection figures are broken out between support due AFDC recipients, which, when collected, is used to reimburse the AFDC Program, and child support due non AFDC recipients. In FY 95, 47.9 percent of current year non AFDC child support was collected, compared with the 40.7 percent collection rate of current year support for AFDC recipients. Whether the lower collection figures for AFDC recipients is the result of the economic situation of the AFDC recipient's debtor, or, as some observers suggest, because of the diminished incentive on the part of non-custodial parent to pay, or the failure of the custodial parent to do their part in enforcing collection, due to the diversion of the payments for AFDC reimbursement, is an interesting, but unanswered, question. In either event, Kentucky's AFDC child support collection efforts compare favorably with those of the other states. In 1993 Kentucky recovered 20 percent of AFDC money through child support collections, compared to the national average of 12 percent.

A single mother, whose income was just above the AFDC threshold, shared her experience with the Commission. She stated:

Logically, a woman can take her ex-husband to court if he does not pay support. But, of course, that takes money -- something which is often very scarce. This was the case in my situation. My ex-husband has joint custody. He is not paying child support because I could not afford a lawyer for an expensive court battle.

Legal services for the collection of child support are available for non AFDC recipients on a sliding fee scale, with a maximum cost of $25. Additionally, most courts now provide Pro-Se packets for the individual wishing to receive relief through the courts without intervention of an attorney. Obviously, the mother mentioned above had not been informed of the low-cost, legal remedies available to her.

A divorced mother complained that she had not received a child support payment in more than 2-1/2 years, even though the court has had her case before it for the entire time. She said that although her husband is more than $7,000 in arrears in his payments, he can't be touched because the judge has not made a decision yet on what he actually owes now. She went on to say that:

There's also one lady that has a child that's 18. She's never received a penny of child support. She's had to fight and fight and she still hasn't received any, because you can't get a judgment through the courts. I was told by the county attorney that there were 80 cases of flagrant non support dismissed in December, 1994— just tossed aside. We keep hearing how Kentucky is getting on dead-beat dads. How do you get tough with them if the judge won't make the decisions?

The dilemma of single mothers is exacerbated by the lack of affordable child care and health care. Under Kentucky's AFDC Program, a mother participating in the JOBS Program (Job Opportunities and Basic Skills) is given a child care allowance averaging $243 per month, and child care assistance is also available to AFDC recipients who are employed. Once AFDC payments are terminated, the mother is eligible to participate in the Transitional Child Care Assistance Program offered by the Department for Social Services. This program offers assistance to former AFDC recipients on a sliding scale wherein the department pays a percentage of the parent's total child care cost after her income is considered. After one year of participation in the Transitional Child Care Assistance Program, a single mother who meets income eligibility requirements can receive child care assistance through an At-Risk Child Care Program. Otherwise, the mother must seek help from non-profit organizations or shoulder the entire cost on her own.

Many citizens explained that this allowance was not sufficient to offset the high cost of child care. A social worker and former AFDC recipient stated: "Child care is very expensive. Single parents cannot afford child care. Infants are almost $100 a week even with a good paying job." An Executive Director of a United Way agency in northern Kentucky explained that parents are often unable to afford this care when they are no longer eligible for transitional child care assistance. He stated:

What happens after one year of being on transitional child care? You then go into the pot with everybody else who's low income trying to get a little help with child care and we do not have enough money in the state to kind of help people with a little bit of child care help. I want to be very clear on that.

This situation becomes even more complicated since many businesses in Kentucky do not subsidize the creation of on-site and near-site child care facilities. According to a comprehensive list of employer-supported child care services compiled by the CHR's Child Care Services Staff in 1993, only 38 businesses provided these services. Assuming this list is still valid, it seems as though relatively few businesses financially support the development and operation of child care services for dependents of their employees.

Concerning health care, single-mother families experience difficulty in obtaining affordable health insurance unless they are eligible for Medicaid. Although recipients may keep their Medicaid coverage for one year after their AFDC benefits are revoked (under the Transitional Medical Assistance Program discussed in Chapter 5), they must shoulder the cost of insurance thereafter, unless they are eligible for assistance under Medicaid provisions providing coverage to low-income women and children born after September 30, 1983. Even though insurance companies in Kentucky may no longer refuse to insure any citizen, the cost of coverage remains prohibitive for many indigent Kentuckians, including single-mother families.

A principal case worker specialist with the Department for Medicaid Services, recounted the story of a rural woman who had no insurance and refused to seek treatment because of the financial strain which a hospital visit would place on her marriage. The woman's husband was unemployed and could not afford to pay for medical services. According to the case worker specialist, the woman sought treatment one year after experiencing initial symptoms and eventually died. She stated:

(The woman) had an incurable disease, that possibly could have been treated had she been treated at least one year prior to this admission. But because of the humiliation of going through the bureaucracy of local hospitals and hospitals in other towns, she didn't want to go and say 'I don't have anything to pay and can't pay,' so she suffered and died. This is happening more often than we know.

The Commission also gained a sensitivity to the plight of the impoverished in rural areas of Kentucky, especially women. According to Ann Tickamyer and colleagues, "... Whereas female-headed family poverty growth stalled in the 1980s in metro areas, growth has continued in nonmetro areas, leaving one-in-four of white families and one-in-two of African-American families in poverty." Further, the number of single-mother families in poverty in rural areas has not decreased despite increases in the number of rural women entering the workforce. Tickamyer and colleagues also discuss problems unique to rural women, including the concept of "double jeopardy." "In rural areas, a woman's vulnerability to poverty is compounded by the double jeopardy of more restricted labor market opportunities with jobs that pay subpoverty wages .... In addition, she is also likely to receive subpoverty level welfare benefits ...." This problem is further exacerbated since rural women are less likely to benefit from human capital investments and more likely to be underemployed or unemployed. And if that were not enough, in-migration of the poor from urban areas further strains the dwindling amount of welfare funds available for rural women in poverty.

A field services supervisor in Whitesburg, Kentucky's Department for Social Insurance, informed the Commission that rural public assistance recipients who participate in the JOBS Program often experience underemployment and unemployment. She described the training of one individual who learned skills unrelated to the job which the person eventually received. She stated:

Her training was that she worked like secretarial training. We have people that work in our office that learn typing skills and computer skills. What her job ended up being is that she is a monitor on a bus. She was happy to do it.

She went on to say that:

... Many of our people who work in fast food restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, janitors, cooks, and even as school bus drivers qualify for our food stamp program. Most of our jobs are minimum wage jobs. Many of our clients may have a job and still be on the welfare role. Most of the times that is the situation.

Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan argue that the incidence and economic deprivation of mother-only families raises important policy implications. They state:

More than half of the current generation of children will live with a single mother before reaching age eighteen, and many of these children will spend their entire childhood with a mother who is single .... About half of (the children in mother- only families) live in families with incomes below the poverty level, and nearly three-quarters live in families with incomes less than 1.75 times the poverty line.

The well-being of these children and their mothers should be a major concern for citizens and policymakers.

There were 7.2 million single-mother families in the U.S. in 1993. In Kentucky, 18.8 percent of all children live with a single parent. As Table 4.1 illustrates, this proportion has risen steadily from 14.3 percent in 1980 and 11.6 percent in 1970. Also, one half of single-mother families, 28 percent of single-father families, and 14 percent of all two-parent families in Kentucky were in poverty in 1990. Clearly, any discussion of single-mother families is warranted because of their high percentage of all families in Kentucky and their influence on the lives of many children.

[Insert Table 4.1 - Kentucky Children Living with Single Parent]

Kentucky law currently allows the forfeiture of a driver's license for parents who are delinquent in their child support payments. Kentucky law also provides for the incarceration of parents who are "flagrant" in their nonpayment of child support. Another weapon added by other states, but absent from Kentucky's arsenal of child support enforcement efforts, has been the taking of any state-issued professional license from delinquent payers of child support. While the numbers of persons affected by this provision would be relatively small, the Commission feels that any step to help in the collection effort should be taken.

One of the problems in successful child support is the tracking of delinquent parents as they move from job to job. Under current law, Kentucky can garnishee the debtor's wages; however, the first step in the process is to identify the delinquent parent's current employer. Many parents avoid their child support obligations by frequent employment moves.

The Commission believes that a disclosure of effort by individual courts to enforce the collection of child support payments would assist state government in the development of policy, and would assist citizens in the selection of judges.

Kentucky, through various programs, subsidizes the child care expenses of approximately 27,000 children. As reported in the 1993 Child Care Policy Report On The Status of Child Care in Kentucky, another 10,000 children remained on a waiting list, and countless others failed to register when the waiting list was frozen in August, 1993.

The Federal Child Care and Development Block Grant, Kentucky's largest child care subsidy program, served 5,300 children per month in 1993, at an average cost of $176 per child. At that rate, service to the 10,000 children on the state's waiting list would cost $21 million per year.

According to LRC staff analysis, the states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina offer incentives for employers to provide child care services for dependents of their employees. All but one of the states mentioned offer a tax credit as the inducement; Florida offers a cash grant.

The amount of the incentives range from 15 percent to 50 percent of the costs incurred in establishing a program, the expenses incurred in annual operation of the facility, or amounts paid to an independent facility patronized by the business' employees. The most frequent reimbursement is 50 percent of the costs or expenses incurred. Most, but not all of the states limit the amount reimbursed to the employer in each category of expense, especially the expense incurred in the annual operation of the facility.

Two states, Maine and Pennsylvania, base the tax credit on only those expenses incurred in providing child care for dependents of employees who are present or former AFDC recipients. Rhode Island allows a credit for expense incurred in purchasing day care services for dependent adult family members, as well as dependent children, of employees. Rhode Island also extends the credit to taxpayers who provide adult or child day care service to employees of their commercial tenants.

Placing a ceiling on the reimbursement an individual employer can receive, and limiting qualifying expenses only to those incurred in behalf of AFDC recipients, is discouraged by the Child Care Action Campaign. In the case of caps for individual employers, the Campaign argues that "... ceilings may discourage the participation of the very employers the reimbursement is intended to attract." The Campaign claims that reimbursing only AFDC recipients based expenses "... can unintentionally reward employers who pay low wages over employers who offer economic opportunity and upward mobility."

The Commission favors utilization of a grant, rather than a tax credit, as the form of incentive. A grant has two major advantages over a tax credit. It lends itself more to an annual limit on the program costs through a line-item appropriation, and actual program costs are easily tracked. The Commission recommends reimbursement at a rate of 50 percent of costs, and suggests a minimum appropriation of $750,000 for the first year of the 1996-98 biennium, and $1.5 million for the second year.

The success of a state subsidized, employer assisted child care program will depend largely upon employers' familiarity with the program, and their perception of the benefits occurring from furnishing child care to their employees. California distributed 3,700 booklets and 13,200 posters, and purchased ads in major regional and national business magazines extolling the virtues of its child care tax credit program, all within the first year of the program, and still found that few employers knew about the availability of the credits.

Reduced absenteeism, lower job turnover, recruitment advantage, improved morale, and enhanced corporate image are advantages experienced by businesses which provide child care to their employees. Yet only a few businesses have chosen to do so. A child care grant program will not only reduce the financial burden experienced by business, but will serve as a vehicle to educate the business community in the benefits of child care.

Many of the advantages accruing to businesses which fund child care programs will also be realized by those businesses which provide health care to their employees. Lower job turnover, recruitment advantage, improved morale, and enhanced corporate image are benefits which business can expect from an employer-assisted health care program. The marketing of health care would be an exercise compatible with the marketing of employer-assisted child care.

The Commission observed that current government programs do not fully address three major needs of men in poverty: guidance in obtaining academic or vocational education, an explanation of services available through the JOBS Program or the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), and employment counseling. The statements of poor males who attended the Commission's public hearings point to this problem. An unemployed father explained that the absence of training or experience was a major barrier to employment in his life. According to him, the jobs in his area require training which he was unable to obtain because he received no information about the availability of vocational education. He stated:

I went to the new lumber company that they're going to open up, ... and they're not doing any hiring right now. But if they do hiring, you have to have so much experience. But where are you going to get the experience to work in there.

A public assistance recipient mentioned his difficulty in finding long-term job training. He stated:

There's nothing for job training for people who are on the street. You go through a course through the HR and try to get you a job, but that quits when you go to that for maybe 4 weeks, just to keep your food stamps. After that's over with, there's no long-term job training programs out there.

Poor women, who are mothers, automatically receive education counseling as part of the AFDC/JOBS program compact. Impoverished men normally do not participate in public assistance programs which require them to attend education programs, nor apparently, are they advised of available education programs when they do come into contact with the welfare system.

Some citizens attending the Commission's hearing were unaware that non-custodial parents, usually males, may be eligible to participate in JTPA-funded programs administered by the Workforce Development Cabinet. In addition, the JOBS Program Coordinator in the Department for Adult Education and Literacy explained that non-custodial parents may take part in Adult Basic Education component (ABE) of the JOBS Program if they are receiving some form of public assistance. He conceded that many public assistance recipients may be unaware of this fact, but mentioned that caseworkers are required to relay this information to all such recipients. The Commissioner of the Department for Social Insurance, also conceded that social workers could probably do a better job of informing recipients about government programs such as the JOBS Program. The Commission also observed that there is no program currently in effect to advise parents who are under court or administrative order to pay child support of the services for which they may be eligible under the ABE/JOBS Program or the JTPA.

The Adult Basic Education component (ABE) of the JOBS Program provides instruction in basic academic and life skills. Participants may enroll in the program to obtain a GED certification, or just to "brush up" on their "three r's." Counseling on post-secondary education for which the participant is qualified, and information about financial assistance to attend vocational schools or institutions of higher education is an integral part of JOBS. While documentation, attested to by the public assistance recipient, that the recipient has received a full explanation of his rights to participate in the JOBS Program, and the benefits accruing therefrom, is a requirement for receiving any form of public assistance, apparently the current process does not fully ensure the client's full understanding of the available supportive services.

The Commission believes many parents who receive public assistance and are not required to participate in the JOBS Program would benefit significantly from training in parenting and life skills, particularly food and money management. Mandatory participation in an instruction program would guarantee education in these areas.

Commission members identified two major problems common to both men and women in poverty: transportation and tax burden. Transportation to workplaces or post-secondary education facilities can be troublesome for residents of both urban and rural areas. Public transportation systems may not be advanced enough to accommodate residents in geographically diverse areas such as those in eastern Kentucky. Consequently, residents encounter a barrier to finding and maintaining employment and pursuing an education due to lack of adequate transportation. A field services supervisor in the Department for Social Insurance mentioned that one of her Whitesburg clients experienced this problem. She stated:

Another thing which she will tell you next ... She's gone as far as she can go here at our local college. You can just get an Associate's. In order to go on for two more years, she would have to go to Pikeville or Hazard and that's frustrating because of her job transportation problem. Transportation is the barrier.

Transportation to places of employment even in urban areas, where sophisticated public transportation systems are in place, can be a problem because of routes or schedules which are not "user friendly." A Louisville citizen complained that low income persons working for enterprise zone-certified businesses often experience difficulty in finding public transportation to their places of employment.

Public transportation companies apparently need encouragement to develop routes and schedules to accommodate the employment and education transportation needs of their clients. In areas where public transportation is limited or unavailable, governmental agencies need to plan for transportation systems which would meet the needs of their citizens. A grant program, providing moneys for a one-time process of survey and planning could serve as the catalyst.

As in the case of employer provided child care and health care, discussed earlier in this chapter, employer-assisted transportation could pay significant dividends. The marketing of transportation facilities could well dovetail with the marketing of employer-assisted health care and child care.

The effect of Kentucky's individual income tax on the poor was a topic of interest to Commission members. Although it did not take testimony on this issue, the Commission did gather information from outside sources about some of the regressive aspects of the system. According to Carol Cohen and Richard May, in 1994 Kentucky had the sixth lowest income-tax threshold (the level at which the state may require these families to pay a tax on their income) for single-parent families of three ($5,000), making Kentucky one of 22 states which tax such families below the poverty line. The 1994 threshold for two-parent families of four in Kentucky was the fourth lowest ($5,000), also making Kentucky one of 24 states that tax such families below the poverty line. Further, in 1994 Kentucky levied the highest tax on two-parent families of four with incomes at the poverty line ($449).

Kentucky currently offers a low-income individual income tax credit that varies with income. Families may receive a full tax credit if their income is less than $5,000, a 50-percent credit if their income is less than $10,000, a 25-percent credit at less than $15,000, a 15-percent credit at less than $20,000, and a 5-percent credit at less than $25,000. The Commission determined that raising the tax-credit schedule would help ease the burden on the state's most vulnerable families.