KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI - An estimated 38% of Kalamazoo County households lack enough income to cover basic household expenses, according to the latest ALICE report.
That includes 73% of Kalamazoo County’s single mothers and 47% of senior citizen households, the report estimates.
As dire as those numbers may sound, Kalamazoo County is actually doing better than the state and national respective averages of 41% and 42% of households struggling to make ends meet, says the report.
The 2024 ALICE report was released in June. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed -- i.e., the working class that lives paycheck to paycheck. ALICE households are those that earn more than the federal poverty level but less than the basic local cost of living.
While wages have been rising, “inflation and the loss of pandemic supports converged” to keep many households financially strapped, said Kaitlynn Lamie, CEO of the Michigan Association of United Ways, in a press release.
United for ALICE is an annual report sponsored by United Way that calculates the income needed in each American county to cover basic expenses -- housing, food, transportation, child care, health-care, technology and taxes -- for different types of households, such as a single adult, a single parent, a senior citizen and two adults living with two children.
The analysis is designed underscore the number of households who are above the federal poverty line but still lack the income to cover a “survival budget” based on the cost of living in that region, using 2022 data.
The 2022 federal poverty line was $13,590 for a single adult and $27,750 for a family of four.
However, ALICE estimates a single adult in Kalamazoo County needs a minimum annual income of $28,284 or monthly income of $2,317 to cover rent (estimated monthly minimum of $504), utilities ($163), food ($405), transportation ($462), health care ($174), technology ($86), miscellaneous ($183) and taxes ($340).
The estimated minimum annual income needs for other types of households in Kalamazoo County, according to the analysis:
- One adult, one child: $43,176.
- One adult, one child in day care: $48,228.
- Two adults: $42,396.
- Two adults, two children: $62,116.
- Two adults, two children in day care: $78,108.
- Senior citizens age 65 or older: $32,328.
- Two senior citizens: $51,564.
And ALICE data may be underestimating housing and child-care costs.
Consider: The median gross monthly rent in Kalamazoo County was $1,131 for a two-bedroom unit in 2022, including utilities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The ALICE budget assumes a monthly housing budget of $957 for a household with two adults and two children and $774 for a household with one adult and one child.
Likewise, the ALICE budget allocates $623 a month for full-time day care for one child. That compares to an average of $1,026 a month for Kalamazoo County infants and toddlers at center-based programs and more than $700 a month for home-based care, according to a U.S. Department of Labor estimate for 2023.
About 12% of Kalamazoo County households live below the federal poverty, but another 26% are below the ALICE income thresholds, the ALICE report says.
By comparison, 13% of Michigan and U.S. households were below the poverty line in 2022, and another 28% of Michigan households and 29% of U.S. households were below the ALICE income thresholds.
The 2022 findings are consistent with a more than decade-long trend, said the MAUW press release: Since the end of the Great Recession, the number of Michigan households in poverty decreased by 6%, but the number of ALICE households grew by 20%.
Additional highlights of the ALICE analysis:
- Racial and other disparities persisted in the rates of financial hardship; 63% of Black and 42% of Hispanic households in Kalamazoo were either in poverty or ALICE in 2022, compared to 35% of white households.
- People age 65 and over made up the fastest-growing age group in Michigan from 2010-2022 – and the group with the largest increase (37%) in the number of households struggling to make ends meet. A big issue for that group remains out-of-pocket health care costs, which the analysis estimates at $520 a month for an average Kalamazoo County senior citizen.
- Child care remains simultaneously one of the highest costs for households with children, costing more than $600 s month for a Kalamazoo County child in full-time daycare.
- Food assistance continued to elude many vulnerable families in Michigan. Partly due to the SNAP income eligibility level in the state (200% of the Federal Poverty Level), only 46% of all Michigan households in poverty and 20% of all ALICE households participated in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) in 2022.
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