Last Updated on April 9, 2019

Poverty in Maryland
A Program Sponsored by Pollination
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
7 PM
Auditorium

Our goal with Pollination is to encourage fellow Charlestown residents to talk and think about issues, matters, questions, and topics that affect our lives and those of our fellow citizens. After exploring ageism in January and February and disaster services in March, we introduce a new topic in April, poverty in Maryland.

Pollination has invited the united way of central Maryland to talk with us about its ALICE study. Starting with a test run in Morris County N.J. in 2009, ALICE studies have now been conducted in 18 states, including Maryland in 2017. The ALICE studies provide a framework to measure and understand the struggles of the growing number of households in our communities that do not earn enough to afford basic necessities – a population called ALICE – Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.

Who is ALICE?

ASSET LIMITED: ALICE has no safety net for emergencies.
INCOME CONSTRAINED: ALICE’S income falls short of basic necessities.
EMPLOYED: ALICE is working, but can’t afford the cost of living.

Why talk about poverty in Maryland, by some measures the richest state in America? Does our state have a problem worth considering? Should we be concerned? Maryland’s ALICE shows that 825,000 households, more than a third, can’t afford the state’s high cost of living and don’t earn enough to afford basic necessities on a day-by-day basis.

~John Geist~