Key Terms

Household Survival Budget: The bare-minimum costs of basic necessities (housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and a smartphone plan).

ALICE Threshold: The average income needed to afford the Household Survival Budget. Households below the ALICE Threshold include both ALICE and poverty-level households.

ALICE: Households with income above the Federal Poverty Level but below the basic cost of living.

Poverty: Households earning below the Federal Poverty Level

Total Households: The number of households as reported by the American Community Survey.

Research Center

State Reports

In a collaborative effort, United Ways in more than half of U.S. states (and more on the way) are changing the way we think about financial need in individual states and across the country.

Through a series of new, standardized measurements, United For ALICE presents a broad picture of financial insecurity in the U.S., drilling down to the county and municipal levels in each state. What the ALICE data shows is startling: Both nationally and in each state, financial hardship is far more prevalent than traditional federal poverty guidelines suggest. United For ALICE is a grassroots movement stimulating a fresh, nonpartisan national dialogue about how to reverse this trend and improve conditions for this growing population of families living paycheck to paycheck.

Explore key ALICE findings by state:

Arkansas

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Louisiana

Maryland

Michigan

Mississippi

New Jersey

New York

Oregon

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

Tennessee

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin