High Costs Of Raising A Child Challenges Grandparents
According to 2012 statistics released by the US Department of Agriculture, parents will spend about $235,000 to raise a child to high school graduating age – averaging out to just a little over $13,000 per year.
This cost does not figure in savings for a college education, extracurricular activities, and family vacations, according to USA Today. The annual amount is intended to cover basic needs such as housing, food, clothing, K-12 education needs, and health care – not personal electronics like computers and cellphones, or the expense of entertainment.
For grandparents who are acting as guardians for their grandchildren, the cost is especially difficult to meet as many are raising them on fixed incomes.
A study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development shows that these families – older adults over 65 raising grandchildren alone – may be among the most vulnerable residents in California, due to the state’s high cost of living and low levels of public assistance.
UPI states more than 300,000 grandparents in California have primary responsibility for their grandchildren. Of this group, almost 65,000 are over the age of 65. More than 20,000 care for their grandkids without any extended family assistance.
Based on the cost of living in California nearly half of custodial grandparents do not have enough income to cover the basic needs of their grandchildren.
The UCLA center’s D. Imelda Padilla-Frausto, lead author of the study, says, “California’s high cost of living turns the loving act of caring for a grandchild into a desperate financial risk. And older grandparents, many on fixed incomes and with limited mobility, are often the least able to advocate for, and access, public assistance.”
Many of the aforementioned elderly caregivers in California are ineligible for public programs like Medi-Cal, housing subsidies, and food benefits because they have incomes skating just slightly above the federal poverty level (FPL).
Grandparents whose incomes leave them above the FPL but below the income needed to cover their basic needs struggle in high-cost counties within Los Angeles or San Francisco.
The authors suggest raising the eligibility criteria for certain public programs to 200 percent of the FPL; extending state foster-care benefits to kinship caregivers; and limit the frequency of benefit renewals. Medical Xpress explains, most older adults live on fixed incomes and thus do not experience income fluctuations that require regular documenting.
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