Two-thirds of Hawai'i single parents with a preschool-age child don't earn enough to live independently.

That's among the findings of a new state study examining the minimum income needed to afford a modest, but independent, life. The study calculated the cost of rent for a simple apartment, utilities, taxes, childcare, food prepared only at home and transportation via the bus for urban dwellers.

The report using 2007 income and costs shows that single parents have a tough go of it here, with budget problems increasing for a single parent who has a preschooler and school-age child.

Eight out of 10 of those families aren't making enough to make the cut for a self-sufficient budget.

"Even if you're earning a decent wage, when you look at ... housing and childcare costs, people are still behind the eight ball," said Teresa Bill, who coordinates a University of Hawai'i program helping welfare recipients achieve economic sufficiency through education.

Moreover, Hawai'i's high cost of living means it takes at least a $26,000 annual income for a single person without kids to live in the Islands independently.

The report shows that a minimum wage job — $7.25 an hour, 40 hours a week — doesn't come close to paying for basic needs for a single person.

In fact, people need to make more than twice what's deemed the federal poverty guideline for Hawai'i ($11,750 for a single person in 2007), just to maintain a modest lifestyle that involves stretching budgets by taking the bus and eating home-prepared meals.

The report from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism focuses on what kind of budget it takes to fund a simple lifestyle for five different family types, ranging from a single adult to a couple with two children. Such self-sufficiency standards have been gaining in popularity because critics say federal poverty thresholds don't define how much it takes to cover families' basic costs.

"If you are making the poverty level you are not able to make a go, basically," said Pearl Imada Iboshi, chief economist for the state.

The study does come up short in explaining how people who earn less than the self-sufficiency line seemingly manage to reside in the state and make less than the standard level.

There may be a number of reasons for this, such as the single adult who splits housing costs with roommates or the single mom who has moved back with her parents.

Nonetheless, self-sufficiency standard advocates say it's important to establish how much families need.

By examining the five family types, the study determined at least 126,500, or roughly one in 10 residents, don't earn enough to pay for their basic necessities without any help.

That includes the four out of 10 single adults who don't make enough money to live on their own.

The study found it took an average of $26,151 annually for singles to live a no-frills, austere lifestyle.

That is far from what's made by someone making minimum wage, which totals about $15,312 annually.

It's also more than twice the federal poverty threshold for a single person of $11,750.

"It gives us a sense of how difficult it is to make ends meet in our current economy," said Susan Au Doyle, president of Aloha United Way.

"The thing that is most interesting to me is the percentage of families with incomes below the self-sufficiency level," said Au Doyle.

When researchers tallied up costs for a single mom with a child in preschool they found she needed to make $41,762 to run a household.

That's thousands of dollars above the state median income for such households of $35,417.

"It's a huge gap," said Debbie Shimizu, executive director of the Hawai'i Chapter of the National Association of Social workers.

Shimizu said the study raises questions about help given local residents through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. A single parent with two children might qualify for monthly assistance of $636, which still would leave many of them below the self-sufficiency level, Shimizu said.

The study may be used in making policy decisions on housing, job development and other issues, she said.

"It's a more realistic picture of what a family needs to live," said Shimizu.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY VS. POVERTY THRESHOLD

The newly released state report on self-sufficiency standards shouldn't be confused with federal poverty thresholds and guidelines, which attempt to define who is poor in America.

Both federal poverty measures don't come close to what it takes to live here, according to advocates of self-sufficiency standards, which take into account the bare-minimum costs of maintaining a household.

"Poverty numbers are based on this old formula of three times the cost of food," said Susan Au Doyle, president of Aloha United Way. "It just doesn't give you a realistic picture of how people are struggling."

Most people are familiar with the federal poverty threshold, which identifies who is poor by setting income thresholds for 48 different family types and doesn't take into account the cost of living in different states.

The threshold for a single adult was set at $11,201 for 2008.

Thresholds are used in determining poverty rates for various states. Using this measure, Hawai'i ranks low in the number of people below the poverty line — it had the fifth best rate in a U.S. Census Bureau ranking of states between 2004 and 2006.

It found 8.8 percent of people below the poverty line here compared with the 12.5 percent nationally.

There is a second federal poverty measure that's used for the purposes of determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs.

These Federal Poverty Guidelines do recognize Hawai'i's higher cost of living, but the rates are only slightly higher than the threshold rate. For a single adult it was $11,960 for 2008.