New United Way Report Shows 29% of Bay Area Households Are Struggling to Afford Basic Needs

Some Families Need Four Minimum Wage Workers to Make Ends Meet.

San Francisco, CA, USA (October 23, 2014) -- Struggling to Make Ends Meet on Minimum Wage, new brief by United Way of the Bay Area, reveals that as of 2012, 29% of Bay Area households were struggling to cover the cost of basic needs. That's 657,000 households that cannot afford critical needs like housing, food, health care and child care. According to the brief, the post-recession recovery has yet to be felt by many Bay Area households because wages for low-income workers have failed to keep up with the high cost of living.

Since 2008, the overall cost of living has increased by an average of 26% in San Francisco and 24% in Alameda County. Monthly housing expenses for a San Francisco family with two adults and two children cost an average of $1,444 in 2008, but that number jumped to $1,896 in 2014.

Yet average wages increased just 7% for the lowest-paid workers between 2007 and 2012. According to the California Self-Sufficiency Standard, a San Francisco family with two adults and two children would need to earn $79,092 annually to cover the cost of basic needs. That would require four full-time jobs at San Francisco's hourly minimum of $10.74. In Alameda, the same family would need to earn $72,830 annually to cover the cost of basic needs. At Alameda's $9 per hour minimum wage, that would also require four full-time jobs.

Because the cost of living in the Bay Area is so much higher than the national average, the Self-Sufficiency Standard is a much more accurate predictor of need than the Federal Poverty Line for California households. The Self-Sufficiency Standard calculates the income needed to cover the true cost of basic needs in the specific county where an individual or family lives.

"It's unrealistic that parents could work four full-time minimum wage jobs to cover the cost of basic needs for their families," said Anne Wilson, Chief Executive Officer at United Way of the Bay Area. "United Way of the Bay Area is proud to join a broad coalition of civic leaders in supporting Proposition J in San Francisco and Measure FF in Oakland, which will help more Bay Area households move closer to achieving self-sufficiency."

Proposition J would phase in a higher minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next four years and benefit more than 23% of San Francisco's workforce. Measure FF would increase Oakland's minimum wage to $12.25 and benefit up to 30% of the city's workers.

In addition to raising the minimum wage, United Way of the Bay Area supports other key strategies to boost family stability: 1) increase job training to help critical populations acquire the skills needed to attain higher-wage jobs, 2) change policies to reward people for moving off safety net benefits, and 3) boost collaboration among agencies to increase the accessibility of support services.

View the self-sufficiency brief, Struggling to Make Ends Meet on Minimum Wage at uwba.org/research-publications. Data for each of the nine Bay Area counties is available upon request.

# # #

About United Way of the Bay Area
United Way of the Bay Area is a nonprofit organization, leading a movement to cut Bay Area poverty in half by 2020. We're harnessing the collective power of nonprofits, government, corporations, labor and thousands of individuals to create change through giving, advocating, and volunteering. Every year, our programs - SparkPoint, Earn It! Keep It! Save It!, 211, MatchBridge and Community Schools - help more than 250,000 Bay Area residents. We connect people to food and shelter, put people back to work, bring tax dollars back to our community, help youth succeed in school and in the workplace, and move people toward financial stability. Founded in 1922, United Way of the Bay Area serves Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Solano Counties. For more information, visit http://www.uwba.org.

Media Contact:
Erica Johnson
415-808-4308

Risk Management Technology Leader Robert Gardner to Keynote Cyber Security World Conference 2014

Golden Networking brings Cyber Security World Conference 2014 New York City (www.CyberSecurityWorldConference.com), forum that will provide the latest thinking from dozens of security experts to hundreds of senior executives focused on protecting today enterprises' information assets.

New York City, NY, USA (October 23, 2014) -- Robert Gardner, founding partner of New World Technology Partners (NWTP), will keynote upcoming Cyber Security World Conference 2014 New York City (www.CyberSecurityWorldConference.com), unique forum where cyber security experts are set to discuss topics such as protecting individuals and companies against cyber-attacks, biometrics as the future of security, risks brought by mobile computing, and protecting corporate and national infrastructure against foreign attacks.

Mr. Gardner's presentation, "The Enterprise Impact of Cyber Risk - through the Shareholder Lens," is based upon 40 years of study and practice of cyber assurance. Beyond the security that can be achieved by responsible cyber hygiene (which we still do not practice, but can prevent 75% or more of the problem), according to Mr. Gardner, critical infrastructure and national leaders must consider two paradigm shifts in their risk management thinking:

1. The cyber eco-system underpinning their enterprise is not what they think it is - it has become a real-time complex system of systems - where runaway complexity presents systemic risks and exploitable vulnerabilities, which may have immediate, irreversible stakeholder consequences. (i.e. before the next 10Q or congressional hearing)

2. It can be managed by isolating the most consequential incidents - quantifying and prioritizing (aka Risk Triage) their financial, reputation/political and legal/regulatory exposure - which can be achieved by several old ( Bell Labs vintage system engineering analyses) and new (socio-political sentiment analysis) techniques.

However the C-Suite and their Boards must really get into the game to set the tone and become Cyber Exposure savvy, says Mr. Gardner. He has been a leader in cyber and critical infrastructure risk management technology and an incubator of technology enterprises since the mid-seventies. Mr. Gardner managed/participated in the launch of several development stage companies formed around those technologies, including August Systems, Verdix, Meiko Scientific, Cryptek, Phoenix Numeric and Probity Labs.

Formed The Probity Group to provide enterprise risk analyses for executives regarding complex systems and critical infrastructure risk. Coordinated development of Gradient™ technology to quantify systemic risk causes and consequences for commercial, federal and international enterprises.

Incubated iRISK™ Enterprise Risk Management methodology for a Fortune 500 enterprise to quantify the financial and public reaction (brand) consequences of cyber risk affecting shareholder and national security interests. Underlying intellectual property was vetted by industry, government and academic leaders in Energy, Financial Services, Chemical and Homeland Security communities.

Rebuilt security division of a public company which developed the first B2 Multi-level Secure (MLS) Network evaluated by NSA, and spun it off to a public secure communications company. Arranged financing and managed turn-around of the merged company. Strengthened secure products portfolio for U.S. and International markets, which reversed losses and achieved rapid profitability. Coordinated sale of company to prominent U.S. hedge fund.

At a mid-cap DoD service provider, he created an intellectual property incubator which introduced Trusted TeamWorks™ and other cyber risk innovations.

Incubated Supercomputer technology into products for U.S. operation of a U.K. parallel processing company. Successfully competed for high visibility Government and Industrial accounts, and was awarded the 1991 Northeast Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year recognition.

Member of startup team which developed NASA's Software Implemented Fault Tolerance (SIFT) technology, pioneering Triple Modular Redundant (TMR) fault tolerant control systems. Business achieved success among International energy companies and Government Agencies. Subsequently spun off and acquired by ABB, which still operates 1000s of systems.

Prior to forming NWTP, he held senior engineering and technical marketing positions for ILLIAC IV, PEPE, LDSP and NASF supercomputer projects at Burroughs Corporation, for which he received numerous technical and market accolades and awards.

He often writes and speaks on topics regarding intellectual property and has prepared briefings and testimony for the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate caucuses on the technology impact on Financial (TARP) Infrastructure and The "First Three Hours" Emergency Response Methods.

Mr. Gardner also teaches business planning for artists at New York City's "Third Ward" creative incubation center, and assisted formation and governance of New York based arts enterprises, including The Brick Theater and In The Pocket NYC. He has a BSEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and studied graduate system engineering and business administration at Penn State and the University of Santa Clara respectively.

About Cyber Security World Conference 2014
Cyber Security World Conference 2014 is produced by Golden Networking, the premier networking community for business and technology executives, entrepreneurs and investors. Panelists, speakers and sponsors are invited to contact us by sending an email to information@goldennetworking.com.

Media Contact:
Julia Petrova
Media Relations Coordinator
Golden Networking
+1-414-FORUMS0