A Song About ALICE

Some day you, or someone you know might find themselves in a similar situation.

-Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant

Sometimes you know things are bad on a gut level, but then you get the statistics and somehow that just makes it worse.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I spent six hours over at the local community college at a symposium put on by the United Way about the study that they call ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed).  The entire ALICE Report for the State of Maryland can be found here.  The data collected by the United Way in several states across the country is troubling to say the least.  There were, in addition to the usual community action types, several representatives from politicians offices including the Governor of Maryland (Larry Hogan (R)) and a Senator (Ben Cardin (D)).  Conspicuously absent were the local politicians, the County Commissioners apparently do not care for the data reported by the ALICE study. Politicians disliking facts and numbers seems to be a rather troubling bugaboo these days.
The reality reflected by the ALICE report should not be a partisan issue, because like say the evidence relating to climate change, it is not something that only effects one side of the aisle.  Somehow though, politicians seem wont to ignore bad news if they can. It's not healthy to ignore the warning signs, and it is especially dangerous to flat out reject a diagnosis. I want to explain to you little about what I learned about the diagnosis of what ails us.  Let's start with what ALICE means:

• Asset Limited: Assets are things like cars, houses, family support networks, business capital, even a good credit score.  One of the defining characteristics of people who fall into the ALICE classification is that they do not have things to start with.  Let's take a house for example, because that is one of the largest expenses most of us face on a monthly basis. A particular challenge for Charles County Maryland is lack of affordable housing.  We are 5000 units below our quota for affordable housing, and the definition of affordable is really, really loose in these parts.  Rental units are not plentiful and there is a long waiting list for things like HUD and Section 8 housing.  A Townhouse in this area can run in the neighborhood of $300,000 with most homes going for significantly more than that. Also, we are on the edge of the DC metro area, but the mass transit system is limited.  There is a commuter bus that is utilized by DC workers and there is a local transit operation called VanGo, but the hours and routes are limited so in order to make a go of it you really need some sort of vehicle as well.  These expenses can easily run you into a pretty hefty monthly bill.  The cost of living here is one of the highest in Maryland, which is surprising to many people.
• Income Constricted: I get it, most of us feel "income constricted," at some point or another, but the actual numbers are pretty hard reality.  ALICE uses a criteria that is different from the Poverty Level in determining who falls into the category.  Poverty Level is currently $11,670 for a single adult and $23,580 for a family of four, but that is a national level and for someone trying to actually survive in the DC area that level of income would mean you are homeless.  So ALICE did some work on determining what it takes to actually survive in a given area and uses what they call a "survival wage." This income level accounts for the bare minimum and does not leave any room for savings or emergency medical costs or really even certain things that could reasonably considered a necessity like a cell phone or internet access.  For a single adult the survival income is $23,568, or over double the poverty level (hourly wage: $11.78).  For a family of four the monthly survival costs are $61,224, assuming kids aren't in the workforce yet that means Dad and Mom have to make at least $15 per hour or some combination that averages out to that.  The household "Stability" budget is $39,030 for an individual and $121,656 for a family of four, that means you have more or less normal stuff and aren't one step away from catastrophe.
• Employed: That's right all you out there in Rush Limbaugh land, these are not freeloaders, welfare queens, and moochers, they are people with jobs, in some cases jobs that you might think are pretty good jobs.  There are the obvious ones like cashiers, waiters, waitresses and restaurant workers, ALICE definitely does live in the restaurant, but there are also people like childcare workers and construction laborers that do not quite make the survival wage on their own.  Also if you look at the stability numbers, many school teachers and government employees don't make it.  People who work hard, people who have gotten the education and played by the rules can still fall into this place where you can't quite make ends meet.

It also bears noting that this is a growing problem.  For all of you who like to trash millennials for their cell phone obsessions, you need to know that this is more than just an iPhone or a Verizon bill problem.  Survival wages don't even include those things at all.  The economic reality that young folks are inheriting is demonstrably harder than the world the Boomers rolled into.  The required resources studied in the ALICE report have increased by around 25% in the past ten years, and wages have not kept even close to that pace.  Also consider that some of the things that may have been a luxury 10 years ago (internet and cell phone) are increasingly necessary for full participation in adult life.  Also consider that, depending on where you live (or can afford to live) travel time and the opportunity costs of a long commute significantly effect your quality of life.
It's starting to make more sense that so many people feel disenfranchised and are running around like balls of anger and discontent. I kept thinking yesterday that we are depriving people of the American Dream.  Hard work is not enough any more.  The system is far beyond broken when a household income of $100,000 per year is not middle class, it's not even "stability."  I heard, even in a room of people who are mostly invested in helping poor people, a certain level of shock that this is actually where we are.  I was surprised as well.
Sometimes, when things challenge your perspective, you would rather just ignore them, or try to break apart their methodology, or call them fake news or whatever.  I do not think that's a good idea on this one, because this trend is going the wrong way and desperation is not a good place for large numbers of people to live their lives, we ignore ALICE at our own peril.