BILL ANALYSIS
AJR 6
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AJR 6 (Beall)
As Introduced February 18, 2009
Majority vote
AGING 6-0
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|Ayes:|Bonnie Lowenthal, Hagman, |
| |Nestande, V. Manuel |
| |Perez, Torres, Yamada |
| | |
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SUMMARY : Memorializes the President and Congress to ensure the
economic security for all elders. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes numerous findings and declarations related to poverty
and older adults, including:
a) The United States (U.S.) Department of Health and Human
Services uses the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG) as a
benchmark to determine eligibility for public assistance
programs. In 2008, the FPG were $10,400 for a one-person
household and $14,000 for a two-person household. In 2007,
the official poverty rate for the total U.S. population was
12.5%;
b) The FPG are an inadequate and antiquated measurement
tool that uses a nearly 50-year-old methodology. The
methodology is based solely on one expense, food, and
inaccurately assumes that households today still spend
one-third of their income on food when in fact the U.S.
Department of Agriculture reports that the number is
actually 10% of household income;
c) Despite the significant shortcomings in the underlying
data and methodology, the FPG continue to be used to
determine eligibility for 82 different state and federal
programs, and are used by state and federal policymakers as
a benchmark to determine funding allocations to local
communities and to justify cuts to public benefits; and,
d) A recent study conducted by the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in collaboration with the
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Insight Center for Community Economic Development found
that 47% (1.76 million) of California's older adults do not
have enough income to adequately cover their most basic
needs, including food, shelter, medicine, and
transportation.
2)States that a more sophisticated and updated calculation of
poverty would provide a more accurate picture of the true
economic needs of elders and their families and that the Elder
Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index) provides such a
measure.
3)Specifies that the Elder Index serves as the guiding tool for
broad-based planning, evaluation, research, advocacy, and
outreach at the national, state, and local levels, and that a
more accurate calculation of the poverty rate among elders
will result in a more targeted distribution of federal funding
to states to support elders, more effective programs, and
strategic planning.
4)Memorializes the President and Congress to help ensure
economic security for all elders and that they do all of the
following:
a) Ensure that federal policies and programs enable all
elders and their families to meet their basic needs;
b) Use the nationally recognized Elder Index to modernize
all federal poverty measures and guidelines impacting
elders, and by doing so, develop a more accurate measure of
economic need among elders in the U.S.;
c) Use the Elder Index to recalculate the number and
demographic profile of elders whose basic needs are not
being met; and,
d) Use the Elder Index to evaluate the impact of public
supports and any current or new federal initiatives to help
elders age in place.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS : California currently has more than four million
people over the age of 65, and the number is expected to exceed
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6.5 million by 2020. Recent research from UCLA has shown that
495,000 older Californians living alone in 2007 could not make
ends meet - lacking sufficient income to pay for even a minimum
level of housing, food, health care, transportation and other
basic expenses.
Proponents argue that policymakers struggle to create effective
policies to promote economic security and eradicate poverty
because they do not have an accurate picture of what it really
takes to make ends meet in today's economy. Policymakers
typically measure poverty and determine benefits eligibility by
using the Federal Poverty Line (FPL), a 1963 measure based
solely on the cost of a bare-bones food diet. Although the FPL
is updated annually using the Consumer Price Index, the 2008 FPL
is the same dollar amount ($10,400 for an individual living
alone) whether one lives in a high cost market like urban Los
Angeles, or a low cost region like rural Arkansas.
In response to the shortcomings of the FPL, researchers
developed the Elder Index which sets a new benchmark of income
adequacy for older adults. According to proponents, it provides
the true cost of meeting basic needs and maintaining
independence in the community. The methodology uses national
and state data sources, and reveals that in California, the FPL
covers less than half of the basic costs experienced by older
adults.
Prior legislation : SJR 15 (Alarc?n), Resolution Chapter 31,
Statutes of 2004, requested the President and Congress to begin
a process to better calculate the FPG and to use existing models
to calculate poverty including geographic costs of living.
Analysis Prepared by : Allison Ruff / AGING & L.T.C. / (916)
319-3990
FN: 0000239