The Heartland Alliance Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP) is home to the Illinois Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Standard (FESS). The FESS is a tool that measures how much income working families need to meet their basic expenses of housing, child care, food, health care, transportation, and taxes depending on where they live and the composition of their family. The FESS is calculated on real costs for different family types in numerous geographic areas across Illinois.

The FESS helps define who needs assistance and places an emphasis on the importance of work supports, wages, career ladders, and economic development priorities. This tool enables individuals, policymakers, advocates, business leaders, and service providers to plan, not just how to move families out of poverty, but how to move them forward on a path to true economic independence and stability.

Illinois' FESS was originally created in December 2001 and reflects early 2000s cost data. As such, the original FESS is outdated and has declined in usefulness. MAIP is in the process of updating the Illinois FESS and creating a useful online calculator that individuals, case managers, advocates, and others can use to evaluate job quality and determine the income needed to make ends meet.

To get more information on Family Economic Self-Sufficiency efforts around the nation:

• visit Wider Opportunities for Women
• Read the Report: Self Sufficiency Standards for Illinois