Most humans have felt the squeeze of tight finances – a medical bill coupled with pricey vehicle repairs that follows on the heels of a vacation and time off of work makes us full of anxiety.
But for some, this financial pressure is a way of life, a constant reality that charges life with stress and instability.
ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, and it refers to households that are not technically in poverty yet struggle to pay for basic necessities.
ALICE households often live paycheck-to-paycheck and make tradeoffs between necessities—such as going to the dentist or fixing a broken headlight—since they can’t afford both.
Is it easier to put up with a sore tooth or limited driving visibility for the next month? ALICE households know the struggle.
At RaiseUp Families, our mission is to help struggling families with school age children in Houston, TX, achieve financial stability. We know that many families technically make too much money to qualify for government benefits, yet not enough to pay for necessities like food, rent, and healthcare. That’s why we utilize data from United for ALICE to gain insights into this often-forgotten category of households and inform our approach to helping families in need.
If you’ve never heard of ALICE before today but are eager to know more, you’ve come to the right place! Today, we’ll explore what ALICE means, why it matters, and how to use the available data to better our communities.
If you earn $50,000 a year, do you qualify as ALICE? What about $30,000?
There’s no simple answer. You see, ALICE is not calculated based on a fixed income number because we all know that rent and expenses in New York City are much higher than in a small town in Ohio. Instead, it’s calculated on a county level. Researchers at United for Alice look at the price of necessities such as food and rent in a particular county and calculate how much money is necessary for a household to pay for basics depending on their household size and caregiving needs.
The minimal amount of money needed to pay for necessities in that county is called the “ALICE Threshold.” Anyone earning less than that is considered “ALICE.”
United for ALICE then uses the ALICE Threshold to compile data for researchers, policymakers, and community organizations.
But although United for ALICE uses data to create the ALICE Threshold, the truth is, data or no data, you know if you’re ALICE. Do you make too much money to qualify as a “person in poverty” and receive federal aid? Are you also living paycheck-to-paycheck, struggling to pay rent, and sometimes unable to afford enough to eat? If so, you’re ALICE.
Local and federal agencies responsible for helping struggling people tend to focus on impoverished people. And while it makes sense to put resources toward the most significant needs, it creates a problem:
What happens when people aren’t technically in poverty yet don’t make enough to meet their basic needs?
This is not just a vulnerable place for people to be—this type of economic insecurity has dire consequences for the local community.
For example, let’s look at one of the biggest struggles for ALICE families: housing.
ALICE families pay such a high percentage of their income towards housing that it limits their ability to contribute to the local economy. They’re often forced to live far away from their workplace, resulting in heavy traffic that’s miserable for everyone. The stress of the long commute combined with the looming threat of homelessness causes health problems that make people less competent workers.
And if they do become homeless, who takes on the financial burden? Local taxpayers.
Childcare, food, transportation, technology, and healthcare are other areas where ALICE families struggle. And just like with housing, these struggles negatively affect the community around them.
The more we can help ALICE households in our communities get to a stable, financially secure place, the better it will be for everyone.
But how can we make changes? How can we help ALICE households?
Let’s take a look at the data.
United for ALICE bases their data on the ALICE Essentials Index, which looks at the cost of the basic things families need to function—housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and basic technology. In contrast, the Consumer Price Index includes the costs of things like expensive jewelry, fine wine, and airplane tickets.
In comparing the two, United for ALICE has discovered that inflation is higher on essentials, meaning the burden of inflation is disproportionately felt by struggling households. This is especially true post-pandemic, as wages have not made up the difference in the skyrocketing costs of essentials.
United for ALICE uses the ALICE Essentials Index to calculate how many families in a particular area are able to afford these essentials based on their income. Then, they provide comprehensive data at the federal, state, and county levels to show what percentage of people in those areas are ALICE. The data is also broken down by age and race/ethnicity.
This data is particularly useful for community stakeholders looking for ways to implement better policies and offer services that will improve their community.
United for ALICE helps these stakeholders and policymakers by providing data on what they call “well-being indicators" in a particular area (check out the Texas data here). Well-being indicators are things like high levels of internet access, low pollution, and low drug overdose deaths, which indicate that a community is doing well.
If a county has high rates of ALICE but also high levels of a particular well-being indicator, it’s worth looking at that county’s policies to see what it’s doing right in that area and seeking to emulate it.
At the local, state, and national levels, the ultimate goal is to move our country and community forward to a more stable place, and United for ALICE seeks to provide community stakeholders with the necessary data to do so.
Here at Raise Up Families, our ultimate goal is to help families with school age children in the Houston, TX, area get to a more stable place.
No system is perfect. We’re aware that some ALICE families can fall through the cracks because of the tight parameters of the program. RaiseUp covers these hardworking families that have been able to cover 80% of their costs but need help with the other 20% to get them through a crisis. We also follow up with financial management and budgeting education, parenting classes, book clubs, and mental health awareness to get them to a place of financial independence.
Our programs include:
We also partner with local institutions to provide additional resources, such as financial education programs, and we have a blog where we write about topics like:
If you live in Houston and are facing a financial setback, reach out and apply to get help today!
Or, if you’d like to partner with us to provide support for families and create a more stable community for all of us, consider volunteering or donating to help.
We look forward to working with you!
