A report released Wednesday showed that approximately 42 percent of Dane County’s population survives with a bare minimum household budget.
The report from United Way of Wisconsin examined the number of households living at the Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, or ALICE, threshold in Wisconsin. Households that are highly financially vulnerable but are not living in poverty are at the ALICE threshold, United Way of Wisconsin executive director Charlene Mouille said.
Such households would face great difficulty should they have to deal with emergency situations, Mouille said. These emergencies could put them at risk of becoming even more financially unstable, she said.
“One emergency and they could slip further into financial instability,” Mouille said. “They are more likely to be struggling to get by and have to choose between food or utilities.”
Wisconsin has 670,922 households at the ALICE threshold.
According to the report, more than two-thirds of Wisconsin’s municipalities have households that are unable to afford bare necessities. Data for this report was gathered from current census data, United States Department of Agriculture data and housing data, Mouille said.
Mouille said such a high percentage could not afford basic necessities like housing, food, healthcare, transportation and childcare because of low-paying jobs that do not provide a sufficient income. According to the report, 65 percent of Wisconsin jobs pay less than $20 an hour and some pay less than $15 an hour.
United Way of Wisconsin has several programs in place throughout the state to address the issue, Mouille said, and has engaging communities and discussing strategies that would help ALICE households. Many of these programs are focused on providing access to healthy food and assisting senior citizens, she said.
One strategy is to address obstacles that households face when trying to rise above the ALICE threshold, Mouille said. This would include having access to better paying jobs and training.
“Ideally, people should be able to save for a rainy day or emergency,” Mouille said. “They should be able to withstand that emergency.”
