ALICE AWARENESS WEEK

November 28 - December 2, 2022

ALICE is an acronym that stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. ALICE households earn more than the Federal Poverty Level but less than the basic cost of living.

This means that these households are just one emergency away from slipping into poverty. And these households can include anyone: a single adult, a senior citizen, a college student, a single parent, a family with kids, a young couple, or an elderly widower. Anyone in our local community could be ALICE.

ALICE individuals and families struggle to afford basic necessities including housing, food, child care, health care, and transportation because they fall below the ALICE Threshold—or the minimum income that households need to afford all of their basic needs. The ALICE Threshold is calculated using actual costs of essential goods and services—including housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and basic technology—in every U.S. county and is adjusted for household composition.

According to the 2020 ALICE Report, 61% of Harrisonburg and 36% of Rockingham County residents are currently living below the ALICE Threshold. Our work and the programs we help fund help keep individuals and families living below the ALICE Threshold from slipping into poverty. But so often, this population goes unnoticed.

ALICE in Focus Series

This year, ALICE Awareness Week will focus in on new data we have received from United for ALICE.

The ALICE in Focus Research Series takes this data to a new level, spotlighting the struggles of people in specific ALICE populations, including children, people with disabilities, and veterans.

The ALICE in Focus dashboards and research briefs allow you to break down the data on these groups by race/ethnicity, disability status, living arrangements, number of workers in the household, and much more. It's a new lens on specific populations in financial hardship — with a level of detail that can help drive meaningful change.

The series analyzes the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) using the ALICE measures — the Household Survival Budget and the ALICE Threshold.

For more information about ALICE, see the most recent ALICE report.