By Jonathan Kantrowitz September 4, 2018
In Connecticut, 538,529 households — 40 percent — could not afford basic needs such as housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and technology in 2016. This update of Connecticut United Ways ALICE Report provides the most comprehensive look at the population called ALICE — an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. ALICE households have incomes above the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) but struggle to afford basic household necessities. The Report describes the cost of basic needs for each city and town in Connecticut, as well as the number of households earning below this amount — the ALICE Threshold — and focuses on how households have fared since the Great Recession ended in 2010. Despite overall improvement in employment and gains in median income, the economic recovery in Connecticut has been uneven. Many ALICE households continue to face challenges from low wages, reduced work hours, depleted savings, and increasing costs. For the many households who earned just above the ALICE Threshold in the past, the increases in the cost of living have pushed them below the Threshold and into financial hardship. The total number of Connecticut households that cannot afford basic needs increased 1 1 percent from 2010 to 2016.
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