Nearly half of households in Texas are struggling to make ends meet, according to a new report from the United Way — and in San Marcos, the number of financially strapped households is even higher.
The United Way of Texas released the Texas ALICE Report Tuesday. ALICE stands for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” — populations who have little or no savings but who work at low-paying jobs and are one emergency from falling into poverty. The report tracked Texas households from 2007 through 2016, the most recent year for which data was available.
“ALICE runs above the poverty level,” United Ways of Texas President Adrianna Cuellar Rojas said during a press conference about the report. “But one setback, one illness, one natural disaster, one car repair, can cause ALICE to spiral.”
Rojas said that although Texas is one of the fastest growing states in the country and has seen economic improvements, many of its residents are subject to low wages and increasing costs of basic household goods. In Texas, she said, 28 percent of households qualify as ALICE, meaning they do not make enough money to support a basic household budget. Another 14 percent of households in Texas live in poverty, meaning that a total of 42 percent of households in Texas are having problems paying for basics like housing, healthcare and food. That translates to more than 4 million households.
Stephanie Hoopes, director and founder of the nationwide ALICE project, said that the ALICE Report calculated a very basic household budget for a family of four at $52,956 annually — well above the Federal Poverty Line of $24,300 for a family of that size. That budget covers housing, child care, food, transportation, a budget cell phone, taxes and miscellaneous expenses. It does not include any kind of savings for a college fund, retirement or an emergency savings account.
“This is a really tough budget,” Hoops said. “And yet we have 42 percent of households not able to afford it.”
Hoopes also noted the types of jobs that ALICE Texans typically hold, such as jobs in healthcare, childcare, education and the number one job in Texas: retail sales.
“These are the jobs that we need to make our economy run smoothly,” she said. “They’re jobs that build our infrastructure, prepare our infrastructure … and then the people who care for our workforce.”
In a press release about the ALICE Report, the United Way noted that statewide, 62 percent of all jobs pay less than $20 per hour.
The ALICE Report includes a breakdown of poverty and ALICE households in each county and in more specific areas. For Hays County, the report gives a poverty rate of 15 percent, with another 19 percent living below the ALICE threshold of $52,956 for a family of four or $19,428 for a single adult. In San Marcos, the poverty rate is 31 percent, with another 33 percent living below the ALICE threshold, bringing the total percentage of struggling households to 64 percent. However, Hoopes said during the press conference, college students living off campus on their own were counted in the households studied.
“The point is that we all know ALICE,” Rojas said. “Yet ALICE’s story is largely untold. There are many folks who make assumptions about ALICE. ALICE is a waitress, a personal care aide, a retail sales clerk or mechanic — people we all interact with daily. This report brings to life and puts a face and name to those hard working Texans who earn enough to exceed the Federal Poverty Line but earn too much to receive most public assistance — and so they struggle daily.”
