ALICE in the News

By Kevin Wilhelm September 14, 2020 Before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived this year, more than one-third of Connecticut residents already were struggling to make ends meet. It goes without saying that this pandemic has certainly not made things any easier. As an update to the 2018 ALICE report, Connecticut United Ways look at ALICE (asset limited, income constrained employed) individuals and families to gauge who falls into this population, especially vulnerable to homelessness and financial insecurity. The new report concludes that before the pandemic’s onset, 38 percent of Connecticut households lacked the income to pay for necessities such as housing, food, child care, health care, technology and transportation. That number includes those families living at or below the federal poverty level (FPL) and the 27… Read More »CT United Way’s ALICE Report shows pandemic exacerbates existing hardship

By Suzanne Potter September 8, 2020 Low-wage workers in Connecticut face enormous financial stress; suffering that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, according to the just-released 2020 United Way ALICE report. ALICE stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed, a measure designed to count families that make more than the federal poverty limit but not enough to make ends meet. Paula Gilberto, CEO of the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, said in 2018, two years before the pandemic, more than a half-million people in Connecticut made less than the ALICE threshold. “Thirty-eight percent of Connecticut households cannot afford the basics,” Gilberto said. “And that includes housing, food, health care, child care, technology and transportation.” The problem is widespread across the state. In… Read More »2020 ALICE Report Shows Widespread Economic Suffering in CT

By Mike Patrick September 7, 2020 Just before the COVID-19 pandemic caused a lockdown, 28-year-old Keeley Haynes of Waterbury found out she was pregnant with her second child. The gas station where she worked as an assistant manager, cut employees’ hours, and laid off others, she said. A complication in her pregnancy put her on medical leave, then she was let go from the job altogether, she said. So, the single mother of an 8-year-old found herself at the soup kitchen and food pantry at Greater Waterbury Interfaith Ministries, where she met Executive Director Barbara Ann Dublin. “They have supported me, Barbara and her whole entire team,” Haynes said. “I don’t even know how to explain the relationship I have with her. She has helped… Read More »State’s working poor face hard road

By Keith Phaneuf September 7, 2020 The ALICE report asserts that the federal poverty level establishes too minimal a standard, and attempts to quantify the income needed in Connecticut to purchase basic goods and services including housing, food, health and child care, transportation and technology. That last item — technology — has become even more crucial since the pandemic began, as laptops, computer tablets and reliable home internet access are essential for many adults to work and for children to attend school remotely, Porth said. The report defines the minimum household survival budget in Connecticut as $28,908 annually for a single adult, $31,752 for a single senior, and $90,660 for a family of four that includes two young children. By comparison, the federal poverty level… Read More »Report: Number of working poor on the rise in CT leading up to the pandemic

By Tatiana Flowers September 7, 2020 In Stamford, by many measures a thriving, growing city, 43 percent of the population is struggling to get by — or doing even worse. In Greenwich, overall one of the wealthiest communities in the nation, 29 percent of residents are just making it, or have fallen into poverty. Statewide, 38 percent of Connecticut residents are struggling or in poverty. Those are the figures in the recently released 2020 ALICE report, the assessment released by the United Way every two years to measure need in the state and its communities. ALICE, or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, is used to describe individualsand families who earn an income above the federal poverty level but below a basic cost of living. Often,… Read More »Many in state, Stamford, Greenwich struggling just to get by

Interview By Diane Orson September 7, 2020 Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Connecticut, 38% of the state’s residents were already struggling to make ends meet — that’s according to a new report by the United Way of Connecticut. The data, from 2018, looks at families living at or near the poverty level and those who live above it but lack the income to pay for housing, food, child care and health care. They’re known as ALICE households — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Among the findings: In 148 of Connecticut’s 169 towns and cities, at least 1 in 5 households are below the ALICE threshold. The United Way estimates that it now costs more than $90,000 a year for a family of four with one… Read More »LISTEN: Working, But Still Struggling To Make Ends Meet

By Eliza Fawcett September 6, 2020 More than a quarter of Connecticut households lived in financial precarity in 2018,according to a new report, but that figure has likely soared this year as the coronaviruspandemic has forced layoffs and wage reductions for many workers, local leaders said lastweek.The 2020 ALICE Report, released Sunday by the Connecticut United Ways, found that in2018, 27% of Connecticut households met the criteria for “ALICE,” an acronym for “AssetLimited, Income Constrained, Employed.” Another 11% of households earned below thefederal poverty line. ALICE households and those below the federal poverty line do nothave enough income to cover both current and unforeseen expenses, meaning that anemergency expense, change in income or damage from a natural disaster can bedevastating. Continue Reading: Hartford Courant

By Keith Phaneuf September 6, 2020 For more than a decade prior to the pandemic, a growing number of working poor families in Connecticut faced stagnating wages and a rising cost of living, according to a new report from the United Way. The latest biennial ALICE analysis — an acronym for Asset Limited, Income-Constrained and Employed households — also found that 38% of Connecticut’s nearly 1.4 million households could not afford basic needs in 2018, including 11% that lived below the federal poverty level. Connecticut’s income inequality also continued to skew along racial lines, with more Black and Hispanic households disproportionately falling into the ALICE category. “ALICE is our friend, our neighbor, our co-worker,” said Richard J. Porth, CEO of the United Way of Connecticut.… Read More »Number of working poor on the rise in CT leading up to the pandemic

By Amanda Cuda September 6, 2020 Latesha Burton works 40 hours a week as a client manager at an account managementcompany. The Danbury resident’s husband is an essential worker at a supermarket and,depending on the week, works between 20 to 30 hours. And yet, even as a dual-income family, Burton and her husband barely make enough tosupport themselves and their two elementary school-aged children. Her husband went tothe emergency room last year, but didn’t have insurance, and the family is still paying themedical bill. That put an additional strain on the family — as did COVID-19 regulationsthat closed Burton’s office and her children’s school, meaning she’s often trying to workwhile teaching them from home. Continue Reading: CT Post Insider, New Haven Register, News Break, Greenwich… Read More »Report: 38% of CT families lived ‘paycheck to paycheck’ even before COVID-19

By Erica Moser September 06. 2020 In 2018, 38% of households in Connecticut and 33% in New London County didn’t earn enough to afford basic necessities, according to the newly released 2020 ALICE Report — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — from Connecticut United Ways. The report also noted that 13% of Connecticut residents are on the cusp of being ALICE, meaning that an emergency or disaster “could destabilize a large number of households.” The report “really kind of drives home just how vulnerable this population is, and now you couple it with (COVID-19)? With this pandemic? That is really going to rock our foundation in New London County,” commented Dina Sears-Graves, vice president of community impact for United Way of Southeastern Connecticut. The report… Read More »Even before COVID-19, 38% of Connecticut households struggled to make ends meet