United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County
ALICE - United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County
ALICE
Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed

  • 44 %

    of Bexar County Households Were Unable to Make Ends Meet in 2024

  • 15 %

    of families in Bexar County live below the Federal Poverty Level

  • 29 %

    of Bexar County households earn above the Poverty Level but less than the cost of living

  • $72,504

    annual income required for a family of four (two adults, two in child care) to make ends meet
MEET ALICE: Essential, Working, Struggling

ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, and represents the growing number of families who are working, but unable to afford the basic necessities of housing, child care, food, transportation, health care or technology.

ALICE is an approach to identifying and measuring the experience of economic hardship, representing working households with an annual income above the Federal Poverty Level but not enough to afford a bare-bones household budget in the county. These workers often struggle to keep their own households from financial ruin, while keeping our local communities running.

ALICE is the cashier at your supermarket, the child care worker, the delivery driver and the EMT providing you life-saving assistance. ALICE is our neighbor.

Households experiencing ALICE are forced to make tough choices, such as deciding between quality child care or paying the rent. This has long-term consequences not only for those currently experiencing ALICE but for all of us.

A household experiencing ALICE is technically defined as having an annual household income above the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) but below the basic cost of living. The basic cost of living is defined by the Household Survival Budget, which calculates the bare-minimum cost of household basics at the county level. The Household Survival Budget considers county-specific costs of housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and a smartphone plan, plus taxes and a small contingency.

For a family of four (two adults and two children in childcare), the ALICE Household Survival Budget for Bexar County requires an annual income of $72,504. Whereas the Federal Poverty Level for a family of four requires an annual income below $31,200. Families within this “gap” are considered ALICE.

The driving force behind United For ALICE is the data and metrics. In 2024, a total of 4.5 million Texas households (40%) struggled to make ends meet, and 55 million households nationwide fell below the ALICE Threshold (41%).

The number of families experiencing financial hardship is even more pervasive in Bexar County.

While 15% of these households are living below the Federal Poverty Level, an additional 29% – twice as many – are experiencing ALICE in Bexar County. Again, these households earn above the Federal Poverty Level, but not enough to afford basic household necessities.

WHAT DOES THE DATA TELL US?

Households experiencing hardship are widespread throughout the county.

ALICE in the Crosscurrents: An Update on Financial Hardship in Texas shows that while wages were increasing, so too were costs. For a family of four with an infant and a preschooler, the basic costs to live and work in Bexar County, excluding tax credits, rose from $68,316 in 2021 to $80,988 a year later. Compounding the issue in 2022 was the loss of up to $15,000 in federal child tax credits and stimulus payments that this family had access to in 2021.

The latest data is a reminder that, while our Bexar County community has made some progress, our work to support struggling families is far from over. Increased wages since the COVID-19 pandemic have certainly helped mitigate the struggle, but inflation, especially in housing costs, and the loss of pandemic supports have converged to keep large numbers of ALICE households trapped.

Further, households experience hardship disproportionately due to race or ethnicity, sex, zip code of residence, age, health, ability, or veteran status.

For example, Hispanic (50%), Black (49%), Native (49%) and multi-race (47%) households are experiencing incomes below the ALICE threshold above the overall county average (44%).

While zip codes with higher rates of poverty and ALICE are concentrated in the near west and east regions of Bexar County, with higher rates inside of Loop 410, significant numbers of struggling households are present in all zip codes throughout the county.

Experience ALICE with the Bexar-County specific ALICE Tool

The Making Tough Choices ALICE tool is a supplemental and separate resource from the ALICE Report and is produced and operated independently from the ALICE Report, which is produced by United For ALICE as part of United Way Of San Antonio and Bexar County.

United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County offers a simulation exercise, called Making Tough Choices, that provides an in-depth exploration of those experiencing ALICE to help you better understand their struggle.

Select the button below to put yourself in the shoes of a typical ALICE family in Bexar County and experience some of the tough choices that these families make every single day.

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