Nearly a quarter of California children 5 years old and younger live in poverty, according to a new report that examines the impact of the cost of living and family income on the state’s youngest residents.

The report, titled “Reducing Child Poverty in California,” found that 31 percent of “poor” families spend more than half of their income on housing, making it difficult to meet basic needs, such as food and healthcare. Five percent of families in the state live in “deep poverty,” meaning they have less than half the resources they need, states the report, published by Public Policy Institute of California.

Safety net programs also referred to as social service programs, that assist low-income families play a vital role in reducing childhood poverty, the report states. Cal Fresh, the state’s food stamp program, is one of several examples listed in the report. Without the benefits from large-scale safety net programs “an additional 14 percent of young children in California would be poor,” the report states.

But while social service programs are beneficial, they can also fail to reach families with more moderate incomes who work full-time and make just a little over what’s required to qualify for social services. The report states that many of those families still struggle to meet their basic needs despite full-time employment. Some federal programs use a single measure to determine poverty without “acknowledging that most Californians face much higher housing costs,” it states.

Read the full article by Ashley Hopkinson about poverty rates in California from EdSource