What is ALICE?
ALICE is a way of counting the households that are working — yet still can't afford the basics. It's the measure behind almost everything on this site, so here's what it means in plain terms.
The name is an acronym
ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — coined by United For ALICE, a national research effort run through United Way partners that measures financial hardship county by county.
Who ALICE is
ALICE is the childcare teacher, the restaurant server, the home health aide, the receptionist at the doctor's office. These households earn too much to count as "in poverty" by the federal definition — but not enough to cover housing, food, childcare, and the rest where they actually live.
That gap is the whole point. The Federal Poverty Level is a single national number set in the 1960s; it doesn't adjust for what a county actually costs. So a state can post a very low official poverty rate while a large share of its working families still can't make ends meet. ALICE was built to count the families the poverty line misses.
How it's measured: the Household Survival Budget
United For ALICE adds up the bare-minimum cost of the essentials a household needs to live and work — calculated separately for every U.S. county and for different household types, and updated as prices change:
No savings, no restaurant meals, no vacation — just what it takes to get by. (United For ALICE also publishes a higher "Stability Budget" that adds savings, for comparison.)
The ALICE Threshold
The income a household needs to afford that survival budget is the ALICE Threshold. A household earning below it can't cover the basics, period.
"Below the ALICE Threshold" combines two groups: families in poverty (below the federal line) and ALICE families (above the poverty line, below the cost of living). Counting both is what reveals the true scale of hardship — and nationally, more than 40% of households fall below it.
ALICE in New Hampshire
New Hampshire is not an ALICE partner state, which means United For ALICE doesn't publish the town- and county-level breakdowns here that it publishes for more than 30 other states. The statewide figure lives in their national comparison; the local detail Granite State chambers and school districts would use simply isn't produced yet. 603 Circle has formally asked United For ALICE and Granite United Way to change that.
For how the ALICE Threshold actually plays out for New Hampshire families — the wall it builds — see the page it's named for.
Source: United For ALICE, unitedforalice.org — methodology, verified June