NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The United Way of Reno County is looking to help those who are resource constrained to make life happen. They are a group called ALICE. That stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
"What we are trying to do is to encourage our community to start seeing ALICE because oftentimes ALICE is invisible," said Valerie Taylor with the United Way. "The reason ALICE is invisible is because they're not in a lot of our systems. They make too much to get some of the benefits like DCF or child care assistance, but still, one crisis can mean that they slide back into poverty. If a flat tire happens with a family and they're not able to make it work, sorry, they're not able to make it to work, then what that could mean for them is now they have to cut back on their spending for food for their household. They can't access DCF benefits because they make too much. This puts them in a situation that oftentimes we don't see, we don't talk about, and so we're really just trying to shine that light on individuals."
The ALICE threshold is a number below which it is hard to pay your bills month to month.
"The ALICE threshold includes people living in poverty and also those who are living paycheck to paycheck," Taylor said. "The statewide average is 39%. When you look at Reno County and you drill that down to Reno County, we're a little bit higher at 42% or a total of 10,750 households."
Families who are doing everything they can to work also have ALICE issues.
"One example that I will give you is having a family size of two adults who are working," Taylor said. "Like I said, they're working hard. They could be working one or two jobs each and maybe they have a child in their care. That child is in daycare setting. That cost of daycare, we have to take into account also. And then they have a child who's in elementary school. So you have a household of four, one who's in childcare, one who's in elementary school, both parents are working, that family in our county would have to make over $86,000 a year to be able to be fully self-supporting and put that five or 10% back into savings."
Between families in poverty and those that are ALICE, half (50%) of children in the U.S. in 2022 lived in households with income below the ALICE threshold. Find out more about ALICE and how you can help at unitedforalice.org.