LANSING, Mich. — The 2024 ALICE Report shows that there are more than half a million Michigan households in poverty—as well as another million identified as ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed.
"With the wage increase going up, which, again, is wonderful but other things are going up as well," said Liz DeLaLuz, vice president of Community Impact at Ottawa and Allegan Counties.
The ALICE Report states a total of 1.7 million households are living paycheck to paycheck to fulfill their basic needs.
"So our inflation is increasing. And those families are still struggling to make ends meet, so even though their wages are increasing, with everything else in the basic needs area, food, transportation, housing, child care, all of those needs increase as well," said DeLaLuz.
The number of households struggling to get by in Michigan grew by more than 100,000 from 2021 to 2022. Director for the Great Start Collaborative of Kent County Paula Brown said it's been a struggle for families coming out of COVID the past few years.
"We understand that, you know, this has been a troubling time for families, particularly as we are still working our way out of COVID. You know, income, you know, a lot of the income in the minimum wage is rising, but also so are the cost of going to be able to access them," said Brown.
DeLaLuz said there's been a push for advocacy around policies to help struggling families.
"So our Earned Income Tax Credit, that was something that we specifically, you know, helped to push our legislators to help increase that for our struggling families," said DeLaLuz.
Anyone can be vulnerable to housing insecurity no matter your age, gender or race. DeLaLuz said there are a few different programs to help families in need.
"Our VITA program, helping individuals or families with their, you know, tax returns, and trying to get them to see if there's outstanding credits that they maybe didn't realize that they qualified for," said DeLaLuz.
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