Key Terms

Household Survival Budget: The bare-minimum costs of basic necessities (housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and a smartphone plan).

ALICE Threshold: The average income needed to afford the Household Survival Budget. Households below the ALICE Threshold include both ALICE and poverty-level households.

ALICE: Households with income above the Federal Poverty Level but below the basic cost of living.

Poverty: Households earning below the Federal Poverty Level

Total Households: The number of households as reported by the American Community Survey.

Research Center

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National Reports

The National ALICE Reports offer a fresh perspective on financial need across the country, with more accurate measures of exactly how many households are unable to afford basics. By exploring the gaps between ALICE and higher-income households, the Reports illustrate how vulnerable ALICE families are to both economic fluctuations and daily stressors, from a global pandemic to an unexpected car breakdown. And new tools like the ALICE Essentials Index complement traditional economic measures to take a closer, more realistic look at how monthly expenses for ALICE households change over time.