In Oregon, about 44% of households struggled to make ends meet by the end of 2021. That’s according to a report released by United Ways of the Pacific Northwest and research partner United For ALICE. People who earn above the federal poverty level but less than what they need to financially survive day-to-day are described by the report as “asset limited, income constrained, employed.” We hear more about the issue and what this means for Oregonians from Jim Cooper, the president and CEO of United Ways of the Pacific Northwest.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. About 44% of Oregon households struggled to make ends meet in 2021. That’s according to a report released by United Ways of the Pacific Northwest. The organization focused on people who earn above the federal poverty level but less than what’s needed to get by day to day. They fall under the term ALICE, which stands for asset limited, income constrained and employed. Jim Cooper is the president and CEO of United Ways of the Pacific Northwest. He joins us with the details. Jim Cooper, welcome.
Jim Cooper: Thanks, Dave. Good to be here.
Miller: It’s good to have you on. I want to start with this acronym, ALICE. I’m wondering just in particular how it’s different from a phrase that we hear or read from time to time: the working poor?
Cooper: Yes, it’s really an attempt to measure that in an accurate way. So for decades, United Ways in Oregon have been focused on health, education and financial stability in their local communities and looking for a way to tell a better story than the federal poverty level or the unemployment rate. And so when we talk about poverty in the United States, it could be anywhere from 10 to 15%. In Oregon in 2021 it was 12%. But when you add on the actual cost of living, that number inflates to the 44% that you’re talking about. So it gives us the ability to see actual costs and what that hardship population looks like and then the ability to disaggregate the data by race and gender and see even more inequity across the state.
Miller: So, how actually do you categorize households? What does it take for a household to be included in this group?
Cooper: The ALICE threshold are the 15 or the 12% of Oregon households that are in poverty or at or below the federal poverty line plus the 32% of households that are struggling to get by, based on a monthly and annual budget that’s based on the actual cost of living in each county. And so we can see what those numbers are. But just in general, from 2019 to 2021 in the state of Oregon, the population grew by 3% while the ALICE threshold population went up by 6%. And so that’s an increase of nearly 50,000 households in three years during the pandemic in the ALICE population.
Miller: One of the things that is most surprising/troubling about this is, the years that we’re talking about. Because there was a massive and unprecedented level of government help, spending, direct checks to people to help them during the first year or so of the pandemic, a year that I would imagine, would have been included in this data. What effects did those checks have?
Cooper: Yeah, it’s really interesting and I think that’s the point of this story. From 2021, it’s actually much worse in communities across the state because of those credits. And so just as an example, in Multnomah County in 2021, the survival budget costs, which are largely driven by housing and child care, food, transportation and health care were $106,000 a year for a three person family with a single parent and two little children. And those tax credits were $15,000. And so that helped that family’s bottom line and drove that survival budget down to $90,000 a year. So you can only imagine what’s happened to your own grocery bill since 2021 - what that looks like on the ground in our communities now.
Miller: In other words, there’s many reasons to believe that the numbers, when you are finally able to crunch them for 2022, that they’re gonna look even worse?
Cooper: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think it’s also really important to point out that a lot of these families never really recovered from the great recession. And so this is a population that’s been growing since 2009 or so, at a pretty significant level across the state.
Miller: In the biggest picture, what does it tell you that nearly half of Oregonians are either below the federal poverty level or in this more comprehensive category of not having enough money to pay for life?
Cooper: Yeah, it means that communities are having to find support systems and mechanisms to help these families so they can survive and get by from day to day because they could be one automobile breakdown or an appliance going out away from not being able to feed their family or maybe even losing their house. And I think one of the things, when you drill down in the data, 44% sounds bad compared to 12% poverty. But when I look at a single-female headed household in the state of Oregon, that number is 78%. So 78% of single-mom families are struggling to get by in the state.
Miller: What else stands out to you, either in terms of demographics or geography?
Cooper: The demographics stand out. In the single-parent families it’s much higher than married families, both male and female headed households. Also when you look at age, we see the under-25 population growing significantly while the 65 and older population is also fairly high compared to those middle 25 to 64-year-olds. And then when we break the data down by race, we can see that 64% of Black households and 54% of Hispanic households were below the threshold, compared to 42% of white households.
And then when we look at geography, we see discrepancies between these demographics within urban counties, a much much larger discrepancy or much bigger difference. And then we go to rural counties where there’s less services, people have to drive farther to work, then we see even higher numbers in some of the rural counties. A really good example is in Deschutes County. That total number is 34% compared to that 44% statewide. But next door in Harney County, it’s 64% of the population of households that are struggling to get by.
Miller: You mentioned the group 64 and up. So am I right to assume that included, in this category, not just people who have jobs, but people who are on fixed incomes?
Cooper: Yes, we see the fixed income play out both in the senior population, in our elders and, I’m not sure a lot of people think we’re already at peak baby boom retirement, but we’re still quite a few years off from that. And so that population continues to grow and they are migrating. So, you know, when somebody on a fixed income retires in say Portland,
they’re gonna move to the place they can afford to live on their fixed income. And that may be a place that doesn’t have services or doesn’t have good health care. And so it can really drive a big conversation.
The other thing I’ll say is when I was a kid, there were a lot of low wage jobs available for me as a teenager. And that’s just not the case anymore because largely those jobs are held by our elders.
Miller: So turning to employment, what employment sectors are most heavily represented in the numbers you’re looking at?
Cooper: So the first thing I wanna mention is that we are at an all time high in the United States of people not participating in the workforce. And so when we look at the folks who are not filing for unemployment, they’re self-employed, they’re not working at all, they’re on social security disability, or they’re retired, you’re looking at almost 40% of the population not participating. So, park that. And then we can look at the actual job categories. So 10 of the top 20 employment categories in the state of Oregon pay less than $20 an hour. And when we look at cashiers or cooks or stockers and order fillers, they really stand out at 59%, 55%, and 50% of the population respectively.
Miller: Meaning 50% or 60% of people who have those jobs don’t make enough to get by?
Cooper: Yes. So 59% of cashiers in Oregon can’t afford to pay their bills month to month.
Miller: To go back to that earlier number, you mentioned that 40% of the American population is not participating, for a variety of reasons as you outlined, in the workforce. What do you see as ways to change that for people who are of work age and are not dealing with serious disabilities? How do you reverse that trend?
Cooper: One component of that is people who are working and small business owners that might not be paying themselves a salary. So there’s some different factor there. But I think really we have to roll up our sleeves and you can either look at the lever of wage or you can look at the lever of things like housing cost or food cost or child care costs and see if there’s opportunities within a county. Say, in an urban county, maybe you have free transportation that could save a family of four $1,000 a month just by not having to pay the bus fare.
Miller: You’re saying that that kind of a policy decision could lead to higher levels of employment? The argument there is that some people aren’t working because they can’t afford to get to work?
Cooper: I think that’s part of it. And then also you can provide more available income for other bills by driving down the cost of each budget item. Sorry, I kind of merged two things into your question.
Miller: But, your answer did get, to me, one of the deepest questions here. One of the things that your organization and United Ways all across the country have been doing in recent years is to try to call attention to this broader way to understand poverty here. And to say it’s not just people who are below the federal definition of poverty. It’s people who make more than that, but still don’t make enough to pay their bills. Then what? I mean, what are the specific policy changes that you are pushing for?
Cooper: Yeah, it depends on the community, you know. But at the statewide level, we try to talk to the legislature about having services in places that need them the most, based on those numbers. But also looking at the state level, family tax credits like the earned income tax credit or a family tax credit, looking at levers like how can we increase the supply of affordable housing vouchers or reduce grocery costs or child care costs?
Child care and housing stand out to me as places that we were in crisis across the west before the pandemic. And the child care system has been decimated by the pandemic. And so how can we look at making sure that families have access to affordable and high quality child care in every corner of the state? Those are the places that we’re spending our time.
Miller: Jim Cooper. Thanks very much.
Cooper: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Miller: Jim Cooper is the president and CEO of United Ways of the Pacific Northwest.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show, or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.