She’s not a circus performer, but Tessa Ward says she’s constantly walking a tightrope.
It’s a metaphor for her financial situation, which requires tough decisions daily.
“I’ve had to decide which bills get paid and which don’t,” she says. “I know exactly which ones have the lowest late fees. I’ve had to skip meals so that my children could eat.”
Ward and her family are just one example of thousands of households across the state living paycheck to paycheck in what’s referred to as an ALICE home. An acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, that describes about 313,000 Kansas families living under the pressure of their tightly stretched finances, according to 2022 data collected by United Ways of Kansas.
Ward lives in central Kansas, but Tessa Ward is not her real name. She has asked The Journal to identify her using a pseudonym after consulting with family members who were worried about the impact that publicity could have on their privacy.
Her family and others like them across the state fall somewhere between poverty and being able to survive. They earn an income that is just above the federal poverty level of $32,000 annually, but not enough to cover the cost of basic home necessities.
“We have struggled,” Ward says. “Right now, I have no health insurance, and I have no way to pay for my medications.”
In many ways, Ward is a success story of how ALICE families can persevere. Over the past two decades, she has worked multiple jobs while also attaining college degrees to enhance her career.
But there were many journeys across the wire along the way. In addition to working a full-time job, her ex-husband would repair vehicles to sell and collect scrap metal from farmers that turned a small profit – any profit to help them afford the essentials, such as electricity for their home. If not for the Social Security benefits for her eldest son’s disability, Ward says she would otherwise not be able to cover her family’s current utility bills.
The “constant tightrope” of trying to make ends meet, without reprieve, took an emotional toll on Ward, eventually leading to the end of her marriage.
“There’s a lot of guilt and shame in that,” she says, “for not being able to provide a stable, nuclear family for my children.”
‘Kind of hidden’
Ward became emotional as she spoke to a small audience of nonprofit and community leaders at the Kansas Health Institute in Topeka on March 4. The Kansas Leadership Center (publisher of The Journal) and United Ways of Kansas co-hosted a Journal Talks event on housing-related challenges faced by those living in ALICE homes statewide.
United Ways state director Lisa Gleason says ALICE families make up 27% of the state’s 1.2 million households, and that percentage is growing as more people find themselves falling behind financially because inflation resulted in higher costs of living, a trend exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you combine the 27% of ALICE families with the 12% of Kansans who live in poverty, then 39% of the state’s nearly 1.2 million households cannot meet their needs for basic living expenses.
Gleason says a lot of people who were considered essential employees during the pandemic, such as child care workers and grocery store clerks, have “been forgotten again” as the nation has abandoned pandemic protocols.
“This population is kind of hidden,” Gleason says. “We talk an awful lot about people in poverty, but we don’t talk about those who are really working but still struggling.”
Gleason wants to shine a spotlight on ALICE families in Kansas to better understand their needs and to make public officials aware of a concerning trend that’s grown over the past decade.
“Those who are in poverty have just stayed the same, but our ALICE population has continued to grow,” she says, citing a 2024 report released by United for ALICE, United Ways of Kansas and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas.
The report indicates that the number of ALICE households in Kansas grew by 28% between 2010 and 2022, after the end of the Great Recession, while the number of households across the state in that time increased by just 6%.
The pandemic exacerbated that trend by leaving many people without jobs, child care or, in some cases, the ability to obtain public assistance. By 2022, about 312,000 households were ALICE, while more than 143,000 families were living below the federal poverty level.
Stagnant wages have also contributed to the rise in ALICE households. While wages for the lowest-paid jobs have increased nationally in the past five years, the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009. The Kansas minimum wage is also set at $7.25 an hour, but under state law it excludes any employment subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act that covers most workplaces in the state.
‘Not looking for handouts’
Simultaneously, the most common occupations in the state are still paid less than $20 an hour. According to the report, the largest portion of ALICE workers includes food service workers and kitchen staff, personal care aides and nursing assistants, and cashiers.
The report states that the consistent increase in the number of ALICE households “represents a major vulnerability in our economic system. It also suggests that overall social and economic policies are falling short in addressing the root causes of financial instability.”
“We have to be willing to have these conversations and to give space to people who have lived experience,” says Valerie Taylor, community impact director for United Way of Reno County.
Taylor says she is regularly facilitating tough conversations as part of the Reno Connections program, in which she works to pair residents in need with available resources. Quite often, she says those people are facing a crisis moment, and it’s better to embrace them by seeking potential solutions rather than “sticking a Band-Aid” on their problems.
“We want people to advance. We want people to do better. But the realities are: Some people don’t have that opportunity to advance without having great loss,” Taylor says, adding that the loss can sometimes come as canceled housing vouchers or child care subsidies.
Housing costs are increasing across the country, worsening situations for families who already struggle to afford basic utilities. According to the ALICE report, one-third of Kansas ALICE households in 2022 reported their rent or mortgage had increased in the previous year. Of the households below the ALICE threshold, 70% were rent burdened, or paying more than 30% of their income on rent.
That burden “impacts not only housing stability but also has far-reaching physical and mental health implications including increased risk for depression, anxiety, chronic diseases and mortality,” the report said.
In other words, financial uncertainty can ultimately harm one’s health.
“It is exhausting being an ALICE family,” Ward says. “It’s the constant struggle, the constant beatdown, always wondering if you’re going to be able to cover your bills, or being able to buy your prescriptions, keeping up with rising costs, preparing for the future. You just cannot prepare for the future really.”
Ward has done one thing recently to secure her family’s long-term stability: She’s purchased a house with help from a down payment assistance program in her community. However, her insurer recently canceled her homeowners coverage, but the happiness she feels to have a home for her family outweighs any worries, for the moment.
Above all, Ward wants people to know that ALICE families are not lazy, and that they are not alone.
“We’re not looking for handouts; we’re looking for opportunities,” she says. “It helps other people when we share our own struggles.”
This article was produced by The Journal as part of the Wichita Journalism Collaborative. The WJC is an alliance of seven media organizations and three community groups, formed to support and enhance quality local journalism. KMUW is a founding partner of the WJC.