California Accepted Papers Paper:
An Evaluation of How the Low-Income Community in Riverside County Would Deal with an Unexpected Expense
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
CAP is Riverside Counties’ premier anti-poverty non-profit organization and is tasked with assessing the needs of the poor in the community on a yearly basis as a condition of their funding. Their survey reached over 1,500 low-income residents living Riverside County in both English and Spanish between January 2019 and March 2019 and consisted of 63 questions in total. Some of the covered topics included questions on employment, income, transportation, housing, food security, health, economic and housing shocks, and general demographics among others. In this paper I focus on a two-part question. The first asks respondents if they would be able to cover an unexpected $400 expense using income or savings. In the follow up question respondents who cannot pay this unexpected expense are asked to choose between seven options. Some of the options are, asking family or friends, using a credit card, or picking up extra work. I use survey information on race, education level, gender, marriage status, employment, and the area within the county respondents are from to determine if there are differences in how the poor deal report dealing with this hypothetical unexpected $400 expense. The results of this study suggest, there are some significant differences in the ways individuals respond to an unexpected $400 expense. These findings may offer some important insight for policy makers looking to address problems the poor face like access to credit or looking to create policies aimed at preventing individuals in poverty from falling deeper into poverty.
