In America’s most costly state, 44% of people can’t afford basic expenses and many more barely stay afloat. But there’s help for the wide spectrum of ALICE residents, including highly educated yet underpaid professionals.
What Does ALICE Stand For?
In 2018, Aloha United Way introduced a way for us to talk about and measure Hawai‘i’s working poor. ALICE, which stands for asset limited, income constrained and employed, provides a common framework for identifying and quantifying the people in our state who are above the federal poverty line and don’t qualify for many government assistance programs, yet can’t afford basic necessities to remain stable and self-sufficient. In the last five years, we have seen this segment grow from 42% to 44% of the state’s population.
