Study says Santa Cruz County has second highest poverty rate in the state

Out of dozens of counties in California, Santa Cruz County has ranked second highest in poverty rate according to a new study.

The Public Policy Institute of California shows Santa Cruz has a 23.8% poverty rate. They take into consideration several things including cost of living, benefits from the government and income.

Los Angeles County came in highest with 24.3%.

Research Associate, Tess Thorman says, “Santa Cruz County has the second highest poverty rate in California among counties according to the state poverty measure the threshold that the California poverty measure has for a family of 4 that rents in Santa Cruz County is about 34,000 dollars a year and that’s one of the highest in the state as well.”

Santa Barbara County came in third highest with 23% and Lake County forth with 21.6%.

Here on the Central Coast Monterey and San Benito Counties have 19.3% poverty rate.

Thorman says there is one thing that stands out about Santa Cruz County in particular, “because cost of living is so high in Santa Cruz County families could be working full-time, have someone in their family working full time, but still be struggling to make ends meet because they’re earning over the federal poverty threshold. So in many cases they’re not eligible for many social safety net programs like food assistance from cal fresh, cal works, cash assistance from families with children.”

County officials say there are multiple factors that are adding to the high poverty rate.

Workforce development board director, Andy Stone, says “cost of living in general is a huge contributing factor, there’s also a gap in education, so several people are not prepared for jobs of the future so to speak so they’re stuck in low paying jobs.”

While cost of living is not expected to go down, the County says they are working actively to help train people to get higher paying jobs.

“Workforce Santa Cruz County has set up a series of programs and training opportunities for individuals throughout the county to get the skills necessary to get these in demand jobs which can pay the wages which would get people into jobs so they can afford to live here,” says Stone.

To check out the full study on Poverty in California click here.