More than a third of households in both Central Indiana and across the state are struggling to afford basic necessities — including housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare and technology, according to data from United Way.
United Way of Central Indiana and Indiana United Ways have been tracking working households that earn too much to qualify for government assistance but too little to cover basic expenses — a group they call ALICE, or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed.
Combined with households living below the poverty line, 38% of Indiana households and 35% of Central Indiana households can't make ends meet.
Denise Luster, United Way of Central Indiana’s chief data and technology officer, said many families in this group have a limited budget, with no room for emergency expenses, paying off debt or saving for the future.
“They're not eligible for government services, but they are struggling every single day, and they can't meet some of the necessities of everyday life,” Luster said. “Inflation is outpacing income, so when you start to see that it's hard for people to get ahead.”
Indiana United Ways, United Way of Central Indiana and their partners said they use the data, collected over more than a decade, to better understand different populations — especially those outside traditional definitions of poverty.
Michael Budd, president and CEO of Indiana United Ways, said many households that fall into the ALICE category are in rural and suburban areas of Indiana, and are often farther from resources targeting poverty in urban areas.
“The types of folks that are struggling in many cases are people that we might just automatically think, ‘Oh, you know, they're working 40 hours, 50 hours a week,’” Budd said. “But yet they're still struggling to stay up with their bills and to keep up on the things that they need to do.”
The number of ALICE households in Indiana has trended upward since 2010, even as the number of households in poverty has held relatively flat — a sign that more working families are falling into financial hardship, not fewer.
Farrah Anderson is WFYI's investigative health reporter. You can follow her on X at @farrahsoa or by email at fanderson@wfyi.org.
