THERE IS, PERHAPS, a common belief among many that those low-income residents of NH who seek assistance from New Hampshire's legal services organizations are unemployed individuals who'd rather take a handout than a job. Statistics show, however, that that is a misconception.

Of the 13,000 poor families with children in New Hampshire, at least one member in 9,000 of those families (or 70 percent) is employed. And it is often those working poor who turn to legal services organizations like Legal Advice & Referral Center (LARC), New Hampshire Legal Assistance (NHLA) and the NH Bar's Pro Bono Referral system for help with various legal problems - from obtaining a restraining order against an abusive spouse to preventing an unfair eviction.

Maria Del Rio, an attorney with LARC, has compiled an economic profile of the low-income population her organizations serves. Del Rio has been sharing her information, compiled from various sources, as part of a poverty sensitivity training into any training she does, she said, because she feels it crucial for advocates to understand the clients they are helping. "We can't really talk about the work we do without talking about who our clients are and what their needs are," said Del Rio.

The following statistics, some of which come from Del Rio's presentation, provide a profile of the state's legal services clients, as well as data about NH's economic conditions in relation to the problems low-income clients face. They point out that legal services clients, although poor, are often working but can't manage to earn a livable wage. "The old notion that the poor are poor because they don't want to work, or because they want to go on welfare, doesn't play out in the statistics," said Del Rio.

Although compiled for LARC, much of Del Rio's information applies to clients seeking assistance from any of the state's legal services organizations.

NH's legal services organizations have financial guidelines they follow when determining the eligibility of clients. There is a "ceiling"-a level of income that clients must fall under to receive assistance. The income of a LARC client, for example, must be between 125 and 133 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. NHLA and Pro Bono use similar standards. The poverty guidelines for 2001 for the 48 contiguous states:

Add $3,020 for each additional family member over 8.

The NH House voted in mid-May to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.65 effective Oct. 1, 2001, and to $6.15 effective Oct. 1, 2002. Currently, 39,000 workers earn less than $6.15 per hour. They aren't just teenagers or workers in their first job-over half of the 39,000 are age 25 or over.

According to the "New Hampshire Basic Needs and a Livable Wage" booklet put out by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the 1999 estimated livable wage in NH ranged from $16.57 per hour in Coos County to $19.56 in Rockingham County.

"It's no secret that if you're earning minimum wage, you're not going to make ends meet," said Del Rio. "You're not making a livable wage."

• Number of poor families with children: 13,000
• Number with a worker: 9,000
• Percentage with a worker: 68.4%
• Percentage of poor families with earnings as a majority of income: 63%
• Percentage of poor families with welfare as a majority of income: 25.3%
• Percentage of families that receive welfare that also work: 11.9%

What, on average, does it cost to raise children in New Hampshire? The following breakdown shows that a single parent raising two children spends an average of $34,591 on basic needs, from food to health care, in a given year. The majority of spending is on child care (27%) and rent/utilities (25%), two fixed expenses that are driven by the market.

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