Across the Suncoast, almost half of all households struggle to make ends meet, according to a new report by the United Way Suncoast and its research partner United for ALICE.

The report, released Monday, evaluated the basic household budget required for different types of families to sustain themselves in their respective county. Researchers calculated the minimum income to meet that budget — known as the ALICE threshold, which stands for asset limited, income constrained, employed.

The ALICE concept reflects a reality that, while 10% of households in DeSoto, Manatee and Sarasota counties fall below the federal poverty level, an additional third of households aren’t earning enough to afford the essentials.

It’s not a threshold for thriving, but for merely surviving. Families whose income falls below it have to make “difficult choices between housing and medicine and childcare,” said Doug Griesenauer, Vice President of Community Impact at United Way Suncoast.

ALICE stands for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” and refers to households earning above the federal poverty level but still facing financial hardship. | Image from United for ALICE

United Way Suncoast works in a five-county region that includes Suncoast Searchlight’s coverage area of DeSoto, Manatee and Sarasota counties. In those counties, the percentage of households falling below the ALICE threshold is 59%, 42% and 43%, respectively.

The report, “State of Alice 2025: Update on Financial Hardship,” uses federal data from 2023, the most recent available. It shows that for a family with two adults and two children in child care, the minimum survival budgets in each county are:

• Sarasota: $104,424
• Manatee: $95,004
• DeSoto: $77,928

Among the three counties, the number of households not meeting the survival budget increased by about 8,500 between 2022 and 2023. Since 2010, that number has increased by almost 37,000 households.

“There is considerably more sacrifice that our families are making, and the nonprofit community and the supports that exist, especially for ALICE households, are growing more and more strained,” Griesenauer said.

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Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., Congress is considering cuts to federal food and health care assistance that could add further strain to struggling families and community support systems. 

“For ALICE (households), it will accumulate, because people don’t live in policy silos. We live lives that mean you have to pay for childcare, pay for housing, put food on the table and pay for health care,” said Holly Bullard, Chief Strategy and Development Officer at the Florida Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Orlando.

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A family with two adults and two children in child care needs the largest budget of any household type, according to the report. In Sarasota County, such a family’s most recent survival budget jumped by over $10,600 from the previous year — topping $100,000 for the first time. 

“If someone said, ‘this family makes $100,000,’ you wouldn’t think that they’d be making financially difficult decisions, but the data show that they are,” said Griesenauer. “What this means is how we understand how much it actually costs to live in the Suncoast region … and how we engage with our community and how we come together needs to be influenced by these data.”

As an example, Griesenauer pointed to a decision in 2021 by Florida Power & Light to adjust the eligibility threshold for assistance to the ALICE threshold.

For individuals, Greisenauer said learning the scale of needs in their community can be “hard to swallow” but Suncoast residents can use this information to motivate volunteerism and advocacy.

While a household with kids in child care has the highest expenses, some other types of households have seen greater hikes in the cost of basics. For example, in Manatee County, the survival budget for a single adult increased by about 16% in 2023, and by 14% for a single adult over age 65.

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The share of households falling below the survival budget can fluctuate from year to year and is affected by changes in total households. But the volume of households experiencing financial strain has risen over the long run across the Suncoast.

Since 2010, the number of households unable to meet the survival budget in Manatee County has grown faster than in neighboring counties — a 30% increase, compared with 25% in DeSoto and 22% in Sarasota.

As a state, Florida ranks 48th out of 50 for its percentage of struggling households. About 4.1 million households, or 47%, fall below the ALICE threshold.

While ALICE data can illuminate a community’s needs, income is not static, said Bullard of the Florida Policy Institute. That can be especially true in economies relying on seasonal businesses, like tourism and agriculture. And natural disasters can cause fluctuations, such as when businesses close after a hurricane.

“We’re all ALICE at some point in our lives,” Bullard said.

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Policy changes, too, can affect how households try to make ends meet. 

This week as the U.S. House of Representatives tried to hammer out a federal budget, separate committees passed bills that Bullard said could create “a perfect storm of pain for ALICE families.”

One of those bills would allow the expiration of a 2022 expansion of subsidies in the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace. More Floridians receive health insurance through the marketplace than in any other state, according to the Florida Policy Institute. Without the expanded subsidies, average yearly premiums here could increase from $588 to $1,116.

Another House bill would prohibit new taxes on Medicaid providers. Such taxes contribute substantially to funding Medicaid in Florida, according to the Florida Policy Institute.

Across the state, more than half of all nights in nursing homes are paid for by Medicaid, Bullard said. Millennials and Gen X-ers who fall below the ALICE threshold and are supporting parents in nursing homes could be harmed by decisions that limit Medicaid dollars, she said.

Struggling families also would be affected by a House proposal to cut more than $290 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) budget in 2028. While many ALICE households earn incomes higher than the SNAP eligibility limit, it’s the combination of all these potential decisions that worries Bullard.

“Focusing on the cumulative effect of changes – for policymakers to make a bunch of policy changes, and cuts especially, very quickly and not looking at it cumulatively is setting ALICE (households) up for disaster,” she said.

“It is a ticking time bomb.”

Kara Newhouse is an investigative data reporter for Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.