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A new report shows what jobs are typically held by asset-limited, income-constrained, but employed Americans.
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Nearly a quarter of US nonprofit workers live just above the federal poverty line.
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Nonprofits help fill gaps in the social safety net, but most employees are struggling to pay bills.
Many of America's nonprofit employees fill gaps in the social safety net, helping people access housing, food, and healthcare where government programs fail.
But a chunk of these workers are barely getting by themselves. A report published in September by the policy and research firm United for ALICE, in partnership with Independent Sector, found that 3 million US nonprofit employees — nearly a quarter of the total nonprofit workforce — are living just above the federal poverty line. The report examined Americans who have identified as nonprofit workers on the Census' American Community Survey, including many employees in healthcare, educational services, and social assistance.
The ALICE demographic is people who are asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed. The ALICE threshold varies based on local cost of living and household size. If an individual lives above the federal poverty line but can't afford survival necessities — like housing, food, and healthcare — where they live, they are considered ALICE. This might be $702 a month for a parent and school-age child in El Paso, Texas, or $2,158 a month for a parent and school-age child in Alexandria, Virginia.
The cohort's financial experience is marked by a catch-22 — their household income is often too high to get help but too low to comfortably afford daily life.
Lisa Kelley, for example, lives paycheck to paycheck in Cincinnati. Often, the 47-year-old feels like she's "doing everything right" and is still unable to access the assistance she needs.
"There's no help," she previously told BI. "If you make too much, there's no help; if you are healthy, there's no help; if you don't have kids, there's no help."
Nonprofit workers provide help, but they're also struggling
About 13% of Americans live at or below the federal poverty threshold, meaning their annual household income is below $15,060 for one person or $31,200 for a family of four. Access to many assistance programs, like SNAP, Medicaid, and housing vouchers, is based on this measure, which largely hasn't been updated since the 1960s. This measure was calculated when Americans spent about a third of their paycheck on food, whereas Americans now spend only 13% of their income on groceries.