United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore puts out new report on poverty
MARYLAND– The United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore came out with a report on children living in poverty.
The organization partnered with United For ALICE for this research focusing on children living in households of poverty. They also focused on ALICE (Asset Limited,Income Constrained, Employed) households, which are families earning more than the federal poverty level- but they are still struggling for basic needs.
We are told locally in 2019, between 42% and 49% of children living in families on the Lower Shore are below the ALICE threshold. Also, locally, for Black and Latino children in the tri-county Lower Shore area is 63% and 61% respectively, compared to 39% white children. In the Upper-Shore area, it is 78% Black, 83% Latino, and 26% White children who couldn’t afford the basics in 2019.
“I think it’s telling us that we’ve got a lot of families that are struggling and a lot of them do not, would not be considered in poverty,” Claire Otterbein, United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore’s Community Impact Manager, said. “Like I said, they’ve got that income frequently, they even have two adults in the household working; so you have two incomes coming in, but you still have struggles there financially.”
As a result of these findings, Otterbein, said they want their data to be a resource to create change.
“The hope is that it will go out there and make change happen,” Otterbein said. “You know we hope that everybody from our general public, our community leaders, our elected officials, those in non-profits put on really important programs to help serve these populations, can use this data to understand the needs that are out there.”
This report is just one of a series that will be coming out this year, there will be other reports on people with disabilities and veterans.
