A report dropped Wednesday. It found 38% of Mecklenburg County households can’t pay for basic things like housing, child care, food, transportation, and health care. United for ALICE created the study — a national research group working under United Way of Northern New Jersey.
The findings show 27% of households in the county fall into the ALICE category, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Another 11% live below the poverty line. That means 180,234 households out of 486,412 are struggling to meet basic expenses.
A family of four with two children in child care needs $105,540 each year to cover basic costs in the county. A single adult requires $43,704 per year. These numbers represent survival budgets that include area-specific costs…