TWIN FALLS — United Way released a new study showing discrepancies in the number of asset-limited, income-constrained, employed, ALICE, households throughout Idaho. Their research reveals that in 2018, 42% of households in Twin Falls county were ALICE workers.
United Way says ALICE workers are usually living paycheck to paycheck and are, at times, just one incident away from living in poverty.
"But we're heavy on manufacturing and restaurants, and retail and those are our ALICE workers," Bill Maikranz, President of United Way of South Central Idaho, said.
In their report, they found that the number of ALICE households continues to rise. According to them, in 2018, 40% of households in Idaho were struggling to make ends meet. 12% were living below the Federal Poverty Level, FPL, and 28% were ALICE households.
They say their goal with shining light on this information is to provide ways for people to move out of this category.
"You know our goal is to first identify them and see what we can do to help them, so they don't go into that poverty bucket," Maikranz said.
Although their recent study reveals information from 2018, Maikranz says ALICE workers were hit hard this year because of COVID-19.
"But with ALICE, it's already a struggle with childcare. So we work with different strategies with schools for after school programs and things like that to help," Maikranz said.
Maikranz says, moving forward, they hope to use this study to see where they can help.
"There are things that we can do together as a community to rally around the opportunities to help. You know our community is a great place, but we want it to be stronger," Maikranz said.
To see more of the results of their study, you can visit their website.
