Allison hates that her family is part of such statistics. She has been through the county’s welfare-to-work program twice. Now she’s tapped out. Allison said she has put in countless job applications and has heard back only from one employer, a large poultry plant.

“My biggest hope is Foster Farms, but that’s a very large commute,” Allison said. The pay would be $12 an hour, slightly more than 7-Eleven, and she would get more hours. Yet the commute to get to the plant and drop off her kids with a baby sitter would be about two hours each way.

“I think the problem is that it is very difficult to get out of the poverty situation,” said Monika Grasley, director of a Merced nonprofit called Lifeline CDC.

All Grasley’s staff are welfare recipients, so she sees their daily life struggles up-close. She said many people are working hard in Merced to make sure the poorest kids and their families don’t fall into complete disaster.

“Merced County has an amazing safety net for people that live in poverty,” Grasley said. Yet, she sometimes feels like those who care are so busy putting Band-Aids on the deep poverty problems that no one is thinking about helping families be self-sufficient.

“Being on the system and making a certain amount of resources — then to get beyond that, the jump is too big,” Grasley said.

The cost of living is too high, she said. With rent, child care and transportation costs consistently rising, Bobbie Allison needs a higher-paying job.

Another major challenge with moving people out of poverty in Merced is that one-third of all the county’s adults do not have a high school diploma, which severely limits job options.

Grasley said the system needs to focus on giving people practical skills training — not keeping them one step ahead of disaster.

“We need to create a transitional stepping system where folks can actually move forward and get the training that they need and have jobs available for folks,” she said.

To get out of poverty, a family would need to be self-sustaining with an income that adequately covers housing, food, clothing and child care. Researchers at the California Budget and Policy Center estimate that would be between $45,000 and $50,000 a year for a family of four in Merced.

Bobbie Allison doesn’t think it’s possible for her, but the mayor of Merced, Mike Murphy, hopes it will be for her and others.

“The factors that lead to childhood poverty are issues that a number of folks in Merced and in our state are working on,” Murphy said.

He knows many of Merced’s residents don’t have the education or professional qualifications to get higher-paying jobs.

“Our economy is diversifying. Agriculture is a big part of our way of life and our economy but that’s changing, and the largest factor in that is the presence and the growth of the University of California, Merced,” he said.