United Way of Maryland publishes report on families most financially impacted by COVID-19

MARYLAND – Maryland’s United Way issued a new report on how much COVID-19 is financially impacting ALICE families. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed – and includes working families who are above the federal poverty line but struggling to make ends meet. “These are working people whose earnings put them above the federal poverty line. But they’re still struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. Things like housing, transportation, childcare and healthcare,” said Community Impact manager for the United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore Claire Otterbein.

Otterbein says that about 46% of families living on the Lower Shore are living in this way. “These households had very little if anything in the way of savings. So that makes them especially vulnerable to any kind of financial crisis they might experience. So certainly the pandemic will have hit them harder,” said Otterbein.

Otterbein says that the new report not only identifies the areas where those families are hardest hit, but paves the way for solutions. “It’s a great tool for our community, whether we’re talking about non-profits, government, officials, legislators, members of the public. It provides a lot of great information to help guide where the programs are needed in our community and what we can invest in,” said Otterbein.

Otterbein says some of those solutions include looking at how equitable assistance programs are, and investing in local libraries to help bridge the digital divide. She adds that this is important because more than half of ALICE families are in marginalized communities. “Across the state the average number of households that were considered living in poverty or as ALICE, it was 39%. But if you look specifically at African American households it’s 50%. So they were already much more likely to be struggling,” said Otterbein.