Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave's On the Ground Battle Creek series.
 
No municipality wants to be in the top 3 of a list that shows more than half or just over half of their households living below or slightly above the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).

But this is where the cities of Albion and Springfield, and Homer Township find themselves, says information in the United Way of South Central Michigan’s 2025 ALICE Report.

Of the county’s 23 municipalities, 63 percent of households in the City of Springfield were at or below the Federal Poverty Level, followed by 62 percent in the City of Albion, and 52 percent in Homer Township. The City of Battle Creek was at 51 percent.

ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, and represents the growing number of families who are unable to afford the basics of housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare, and technology. These workers, the report says, “often struggle to keep their own households from financial ruin, while keeping our local communities running.”

Based on 2023 data, this year’s report says that of the 54,568 total households in Calhoun County, 45 percent were below the ALICE threshold which is about $29,000 for a single adult and $74,500 for a family of four, while the FPL this year is $15,650 for an individual and $32,150 for a family of four.

The official poverty measure has been produced since the 1960s and defines poverty by comparing pretax money income to a national poverty threshold that varies by family size and age of the householder, says an article on the U.S. Census Bureau website. The poverty threshold was originally defined as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963 and is annually adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). 

The FPL hasn’t been changed functionally since its inception, says Chris Sargent, President and CEO of United Way of Southcentral Michigan, which co-produces the ALICE Report with the Consumers Energy Foundation.

“The original numbers were created at a moment in time which has never been functionally updated to look at what’s realistic in today’s environment.”
Looking through the lens of basic humanity, he says society needs to question whether there is intentional work being done to tackle issues of poverty and lift people above the ALICE threshold.

“They work as hard as anybody and in many cases are working multiple jobs. It’s a ridiculous notion to think they’re not. Leaders in businesses and organizations need to fully understand what it costs for these families to get by,” Sargent says. “It’s a long time since we’ve made basic wages available to workers. Those ALICE individuals then come under attack for falling into that category.”

This year’s ALICE Report says that individuals under age 25 and seniors have some of the highest ALICE or below ALICE thresholds.

“The inflation pressures we saw in 2023 have some impact on that. If you’re under 25 and new in your career, wages might be less, and if you have kids on top of that, childcare continues to be expensive, rents and interest rates are higher, and the cost of groceries and wages aren’t keeping pace for those costs,” Sargent says.

The impact of these factors on households continues to worsen.

“The numbers are increasing among those under 25 and seniors because of household budgets that are outpacing money coming in,” he says.

These age groups are part of the overall numbers represented in the 7^th ALICE report, which is put together by the Michigan Association of United Ways and the Consumers Energy Foundation. The report has a county-by-county breakdown, which shows Calhoun County four percentage points higher than 41 percent of all Michigan households at or below the ALICE threshold in 2023.

That statewide number remained unchanged from the last ALICE Report, which used 2022 data. Sargent says this is due to ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) dollars, which have pretty much run out.

What puts people in the ALICE space

“Wages, it’s all about wage growth,” Sargent says. “That’s why we really advocate strongly for the importance of wages and benefits for working families.”

Leadership with UWSCMI is having conversations with business leaders to give them a better understanding of the importance of wages and benefits as a way to lift people out of poverty while also enabling them to recruit and retain talented individuals.

Sargent says representatives with the United for ALICE cohort talk with businesses about wages as well as transportation and childcare for their employees, and how policies can be created that will benefit the employer and the employee.

“If you’re not getting paid when you have to take time off, that’s a really important conversation that needs to happen,” he says. “We advocate for those types of policies to help support workers.”

On the employee side, UWSCMI lifts up Earned Income Tax Credits and other benefits working families qualify for, such as Medicaid, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and various housing supports. The organization also directs programs and investments into the poverty space to help those most at risk.

“Many of them are clients of nonprofits we fund and clients of direct programs we lead at United Way,” Sargent says. “We helped tens of thousands of clients already this year throughout our region who needed assistance with utility bills, emergency shelter, and food. We connect with many of these families below the ALICE threshold who are just trying to hang on and manage their way through tough decisions. ALICE is critical to recognizing that these are working families trying to be self-sufficient and need help to get to that point.”

However, that journey to self-sufficiency is headed for a major roadblock created by the current Administration, which is fast-tracking trillions of dollars in cuts in federal funding to Medicaid, HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development and the SNAP program, among a host of other organizations and programs.

These cuts, Sargent says, will be “absolutely catastrophic for those living below the ALICE threshold. Everyday folks who care about their community need to pay close attention to what’s being proposed. These cuts will have detrimental effects on seniors, veterans, and families. So many of these families still qualify for some of these benefits for base support.”

While he says he can appreciate the arguments for less government, he says it needs to be done in a more thoughtful way.

“You can’t just all of a sudden cut those benefits off without talking about wage increases and reductions in inflation.”

Leaders of local nonprofits and philanthropic organizations have formed a coalition to discuss the potential cuts and how the loss of funding will impact their ability to serve their clients and constituents.

For more than a decade, Sargent says UWSCMI has been raising money, which has been used in areas including disaster relief, violence intervention and prevention, and the fallout from the COVID pandemic.

“We are raising additional dollars beyond annual fundraising support. Truth of the matter is these cuts are so significant that we won’t be able to fill that gap,” he says. “Potential cuts from a federal funding level could be so significant. We just don’t have the local resources to impact what may happen.”

However, he says that communities in UWSCMI’s region have always historically come together with their time and resources when there are needs to be addressed.

“We know that when we can come together, we can do so much. We know that communities in the region we serve have always come together when it has mattered, and we fully expect that to happen again in light of what may happen at the federal level,” Sargent says.