This 115-page report, released by Economic Policy Institute (EPI) at the end of July 2001, "is the most comprehensive study of family hardships ever published." The report examines the plight of the working poor by determining basic family budgets for communities across the nation -- the amount of money a family needs for food, housing, utilities, child care, transportation, and health care -- and comparing these figures to wage statistics. The report concludes that two-and-a-half times more families fall beneath the basic family budget levels for their communities than fall below the federal poverty line.
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