WASHINGTON – Most families in the South Atlantic region were very concerned about being unable to afford health care, not having enough money for retirement and being unable to afford post-secondary education for their children.
Such fears came from all income brackets — not just the poor, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Marguerite Casey Foundation, a private Seattle group that seeks to help low-income people.
“Families are facing the same hardships, regardless of income levels,” said Foundation President Luz Vega-Marquis. “(Hurricane) Katrina just heightened our need to listen to all people.”
The data, collected by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, represented 1,546 families nationwide and carried a 3-point error margin.
It included 277 very low-income families, 728 considered moderately poor and 541 wealthy families.
Regional margins of error were higher, with those in the South Atlantic region — which includes Maryland — ranging from 6 to 8 points.
While it may not be surprising that more than 70 percent of the poor were very concerned about health care and education, the fact that almost 60 percent of all families — including the rich — shared the same worries raised eyebrows Wednesday on Capitol Hill at a panel that included groups ranging from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to the Heritage Foundation.
Adding to the alarm was the survey’s finding that 33 percent of all families in the region couldn’t fully pay all of their bills at the end of each month and that almost one-fifth were not covered by health insurance.
“The real story here is how little difference we found,” said Mary McIntosh, president of the Princeton Survey Research Associates International. “Regionally, ethnically, age, gender — the unanimity was stark in what was supposed to be a divided America.”
Even more surprising was survey participants’ apparent consensus on solutions to these issues.
More than 90 percent of families in the South Atlantic region supported increasing the minimum wage, 93 percent wanted the government to expand subsidized day care for the poor and 88 percent supported additional spending on medical care for low-income families.
But that consensus may not be as great as presented by the survey, said Kirk A. Johnson from the Maryland Public Policy Institute raised concerns about the survey that produced them.
“The questions almost assume that these (solutions) come as a free lunch, that you can have increases in programs without costing anything,” Johnson said.
He added that increasing the minimum wage would lower the availability of jobs for low-skill workers, and some of the survey’s other questions about solutions assume a larger role for the government, which has resulted in record levels of welfare dependency in the past.
“It’s long past time for the positive benefits of welfare reform to be reauthorized more formally,” Johnson said. “When we had reform . . . people got jobs, the incomes of low-income workers began to rise and more and more people were taken off the rolls because they were earning more than welfare would pay.”
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