A senior citizen in Portland, Ore., receives a delivery of groceries from a nonprofit in this 2021 file photo.
Gillian Flaccus / AP
About 44% of households in Oregon struggled to make ends meet in 2021, according to a report by United Ways of the Pacific Northwest and research partner United For ALICE.
The report focused on people who earn above the federal poverty level but less than what they need to financially survive day-to-day, which is a category known as “ALICE:” Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
“It’s also really important to point out that a lot of these families never really recovered from the Great Recession,” said Jim Cooper, the president and CEO of United Ways of the Pacific Northwest. “And so this is a population that’s been growing since 2009, or so at a pretty significant level across the state.”
The report found that single female-headed households had among the highest rates of hardship and about 78% of these households could not afford basics in 2021.
Cooper said he hopes state lawmakers can use the data to better help underserved families.
“We try to talk to the Legislature about having services in places that need them the most,” he said. “Child care and housing stand out to me as places that we were in crisis across the West before the pandemic.”
And at the state level, Cooper hopes policymakers can look toward tax breaks like the earned income tax credit, which helps low income workers.
Cooper spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller about the report. Listen to the conversation:
