Kerry Pedraza, executive director of United Way of Clark, Champaign and Madison counties, said in the livestream that many government benefit systems become available to those meeting federal poverty guidelines, where a single individual would have an annual salary of about $14,000 or less.
ALICE takes into consideration expenses like childcare, health care, food, transportation, rent and taxes, and a single person needs to make $23,000 a year to meet these needs, and may not qualify for governmental assistance.
“You would not often know that your neighbor probably is an ALICE because, as our numbers reflect, there is a bigger population than we were really aware of until we started doing these studies,” Pedraza said.
Pedraza said the most recent ALICE data available is from 2021, due to the issues the COVID-19 pandemic caused with the U.S. Census.
Patterson said in Springfield, according to the data, 53% of residents are at or below the ALICE threshold. The data also shows that 25% of Ohioans are ALICE, with 13% living in poverty.
For families with two children and two adults, surviving can be even more of a struggle, Patterson said, because to make the ALICE threshold of $63,000 a year, both parents must work and earn at least $15 an hour. These families also often need to pay for childcare while the parents are working.
When parents make more money, they then may lose access to subsidized childcare because government policy views them as more capable to afford the service on their own, when that usually is not the case, Pedraza said. She said years ago, an employee of hers begged her not to give her a small raise because she would lose her childcare and could not afford it on her own.
“It was disincentivizing her because she was probably going to lose $150 a week and I was going to end up giving her, what $7, $8 more a week when you end up looking at it in totality,” Pedraza said.
Six of 10 people living below the ALICE threshold are struggling to pay for their basic needs, Pedraza said. More people have been calling 211 for help, asking questions like, “Where can I find the nearest hot meal? Where can I find the latest food pantry that’s going to be open? Because I have nothing in my household.”
Black community members are the largest group in the ALICE category, and with a growing Haitian population who may not fit into any single census category, it’s difficult to ascertain who needs the most assistance, Patterson said.
Older adults in the community make up 37% of the ALICE numbers despite retirement plans, Pedraza said.
“If we look at people, let’s say they’re 85 years old and they retired at 65 — 20 years ago, right? So although they get tiny increases (in retirement benefits), they certainly have not kept up with inflation over that 20 years,” Patterson said
Older adults may have raised their children and are now caring for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren, Pedraza said, which creates even more of a burden.
“Oftentimes they make their own decisions to forego food because they need to pay for their prescriptions, or they just don’t get their prescriptions,” Pedraza said. “It’s just a cycle that they’re going through.”
She said organizations like Second Harvest and United Senior Services are working to help older adults in these kinds of situations.
Other organizations like OIC can help with rent and mortgage assistance to prevent people from losing their homes, Patterson said.
“They’re helping out the homelessness issue by preventing homelessness — by making sure that people can stay in their rental, stay in their house that they’re buying.” Patterson said.
A pay increase is often counterintuitive because it can cause someone to lose their government assistance, so a policy change to encourage people to work more and get promoted without losing this would help many people in the community, Pedraza said.
“Somehow we need to kind of smooth that curve out a little bit so it isn’t a cliff; it’s a nice, gentle slope that people can survive and thrive,” Patterson said. " ... We want everybody to be employed that can be employed.”
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