ALICE: Drowning in the Gap Between Poverty and Economic Stability
United for ALICE just released new state reports and its 2025 Update on Financial Hardship. The ALICE acronym represents our friends and neighbors who live above the poverty line but still struggle to afford the basics for themselves and their families. ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, and represents the growing number of families who are unable to afford the basics of housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and technology. These workers often struggle to keep their own households from financial ruin, while keeping our local communities running.
Among the key findings of this new report:
- Financial Hardship: Of Kansas's 1,174,788 households in 2023, 12% earned below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and 26% were ALICE — households that earned above the FPL, but not enough to afford the ALICE Household Survival Budget for their household composition and location. Combining these two groups, 38% of households in Kansas were below the ALICE Threshold.
- The Cost of Basics: In Kansas, average basic costs in the ALICE Household Survival Budget were $27,216 for a single adult and $68,712 for a family of four with two adults and two children in child care — much higher than the FPL ($14,580 for an individual and $30,000 for a family of four). Basic costs varied substantially by county. Compare Costs Over Time with the ALICE Essentials Index.
Read more and see the data for yourself at https://www.unitedforalice.org/key-findings/kansas.
What does this mean for us? It means that we must continue to focus conversations and solutions on not just the 12% of Kansans already below the Federal Poverty Level, but on the additional 26% who are ALICE. Because without the right support, ALICE is just an emergency away from falling even further into instability.
