The politics of a federal government shutdown is making headlines again. For many families in Connecticut, however, the real story is not what might happen in Washington this week, but what is already happening in their homes every single day.
United Way’s latest ALICE, or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, Report revealed that 581,000 households in Connecticut struggle to afford life’s basics. These families are working hard in jobs that keep our economy running, yet their paychecks don’t stretch to cover housing, child care, food, transportation and health care, never mind start an emergency savings fund.
Shutdown or no shutdown, these families already live one crisis away from financial peril. A broken transmission, a missed day of work or a slight rent increase can set off a chain of events that takes months, if not years, to recover from. That is what it means to be ALICE: doing everything right but still falling behind.
The numbers tell us we are headed in the wrong direction. Since 2019, 80,000 additional Connecticut households have become ALICE. That’s greater than the number of households in Bridgeport. Costs for essentials have soared, but wages have not kept pace. Families at the edge of financial stability have been pushed into newfound hardship, and families already struggling are being pushed further down.
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This hardship has consequences not only for these families, but for all of us. Children growing up in financially unstable households are more likely to face barriers to success in school. Employers struggle to fill jobs when workers can’t afford reliable transportation or child care. Communities lose when families are forced to move out of our state in search of affordability.
It is easy to see a government shutdown as a sudden disruption. In truth, the disruption is ongoing. ALICE families live with it every day. A shutdown only makes their challenges worse.
Connecticut cannot control what happens in Washington, but we can control how we respond here at home. Policymakers should take this moment as a reminder of the urgent need for long-term solutions: supporting proven solutions like creating a state-level Child Tax Credit and investing in United Way’s 211 basic needs hotline to help these hard working families weather the challenges of this storm.
The math does not have to keep failing our neighbors. With deliberate policy choices, we can move Connecticut toward a future where fewer families live one step away from crisis, and more families have the stability to thrive.
Shutdown politics may dominate the headlines. But the real crisis is already here, and it demands our urgent attention.