Episode 7: Moving from Poverty to ALICE: Income Insufficiency & Need in the 21st Century

Bending the Arc

Why is the poverty level dropping when the gap between how much it costs to live and how much families earn is actually growing? Workers across the United States are experiencing income insufficiency—the phenomena of working for a wage that doesn't pay enough to cover basic needs but earning too much to be eligible for social support programs. They work in some of our most crucial jobs – keeping us safe as security guards, caring for loved ones as Home Aids, helping us with our bags at the grocery store – but their struggles have been rendered invisible by the Federal Poverty Measure. A new measure from the United Way ALICE (Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed) project shines some much needed light on the problem, finding that a whopping 43% of American households aren’t making it in today’s economy, triple the federal poverty rate. These households are in every U.S. county and include every gender, race, ethnicity, and age. Join us as we talk with ALICE Project Director Dr. Stephanie Hoopes and staunch ALICE advocate Karen Perham-Lippman, Deputy Commissioner in Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection, to help us learn about how families are getting by, and what we can do about it. Related SP2 Faculty Dr. Bobbie Iversen: https://www.sp2.upenn.edu/people/view/roberta-iversen/ Other Resources The ALICE website: unitedwayalice.org See if you can make it on ALICE’s wages: http://www.makingtoughchoices.org Philadelphia’s Fair work week legislation:http://www.phillytrib.com/news/fair-work-week-bill-continues-to-wind-through-city-council/article_6bdc82a1-fba5-5035-9a5d-49ea6baf4e6c.html National Center for Children in Poverty: http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_892.html The Spread of GoFundMe: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/07/02/health-care-gofundme-crowdfunding-doctor-bills-minn) “Scarcity" by Sendhil Mullainathan: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/scarcity-sendhil-mullainathan/1114258421