Finding Help

These pages offer help to those seeking to apply for public benefits/work supports.

People Point: Bridge to Benefits--One-stop access to benefits for residents of King County.

Low Income Self-Sufficiency Resources--A page by Washington Appleseed with links to help people apply for public benefits, tax help and other services.

WDC Working Poor Forum Presentations

To launch our report on the working poor and draw community attention to this issue, the WDC held a public forum in October 2007. Below are links to the presentations made at the forum by community leaders. (PDF format)

• "Working But Poor"
  by Marcia K. Meyers
  West Coast Poverty Center, Univ. of Washington

• "What Do We Know about the Working Poor in Washington State?"
  by Dr. Diana Pearce
  Center for Women's Welfare, Univ. of Washington

• "The Working Poor in East King County:    Hardly Getting By"
  by Leah McCollough
  Hopelink

• "Assets and the Working Poor"
  by Dave Sieminski
  United Way of King County

Organizations and Initiatives

• Washington Appleseed -- Dedicated to public-interest law and social policy, this nonprofit includes low-income self-sufficiency as a focus.

• West Coast Poverty Center -- The newest of three regional poverty research centers, this center at the University of Washington studies the causes and effects of poverty in the West Coast states.

• Center for Women's Welfare -- This center at the University of Washington partners with the WDC to produce the Self-Sufficiency Standard and Calculator. It is devoted to he goal of economic justice for women and their families

• Working Poor Families Project, Seattle Jobs Initiative -- SJI is part of a nationwide effort to research and report on the plight of low-income working familes. (See below for links to reports.)

• Bridging the Gaps -- A national project to increase the use of work supports--help for needs such as health care, child care, food, and housing--among working families.

Articles and Publications

• The Myth of Full Employment:  Working and Still Poor in King County (October 2007) -- A WDC State of the Workforce report.

• The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Washington State (August 2007) -- Published by the WDC and Dr. Diana Pearce, the WDC's partner in creating the Self-Sufficiency Calculator, this report includes an analysis of the gaps between income and self-sufficiency and tables of self-sufficiency requirements in each of the state's counties.

• Overlooked and Undercounted: Wages, Work and Poverty in Washington State (September 2007) -- A report by Dr. Diana Pearce of the Center for Women's Welfare.

• Hard Work, Hard Times: The Plight of Puget Sound's Working Poor -- In 2005-06, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published a series of stories on the working poor.

• The Status of Working Poor Families in Washington and other publications from the Seattle Jobs Initiative, including Bridging the Gaps in Washington (January 2008).

• Movin' On Up: Reforming America's Social Contract to Provide a Bridge to the Middle Class (February 2008). A Bridging the Gaps report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research