Working and Still Falling Short

New ALICE Report: 1 in 3 Workers in New Jersey’s Most Common Jobs Struggle to Get By

By Kiran Handa Gaudioso, CEO, United Way of Northern New Jersey

For many of us, pitching “breakfast for dinner” to our children has been an easy way to cut corners when we’re pinched for time and budget. Our children are none the wiser, thinking it’s a fun twist on the regular routine and a reprieve from dreaded vegetables. I confess to taking this shortcut back in the day when my children were young and my husband and I were juggling busy work schedules.  

Eggs were at the center of it all – whether it was a pancake night or scrambled eggs – they were critical to pulling it off. So, as I shop each week and sometimes see a dozen eggs in my supermarket costing anywhere from $7 or more due to the national egg shortage, it brings back these memories. And I think about how something as small as an egg could quickly become trouble for families with little financial cushion.

We know the bird flu is to blame for the higher prices but that doesn’t make it any easier to stomach the result. Egg prices have soared, hitting an average $6.23 per dozen this spring, up from $2.99 a year ago. For some, that’s just another inconvenience. But for the 29% of ALICE households in our state and across the U.S. that can’t make ends meet, it’s yet another hit to a fragile budget.

Our latest ALICE research released today shows that across our state, nearly one third of workers in the 20 most common jobs – personal care aides, janitors, waiters and waitresses, cashiers, and laborers and movers – live in households that are ALICE or in poverty and are forced to make sacrifices just to get breakfast or dinner on the table.

And if a struggling family tries to save money by switching to cereal instead for dinner? The price of cereal has jumped just as much – rising from around $6 to nearly $10 per family-sized box since the pandemic. To make matters worse, manufacturers have shrunk the box size while charging more, a trend now widely known as “shrinkflation."

I don’t blame the businesses for this – they’re facing rising costs themselves. But it’s just another hurdle for ALICE families with income above the Federal Poverty Level but less than the cost of essentials. ALICE works hard, often at more than one job, and still falls short. In fact, in New Jersey, a family of four with two adults working as a full-time personal care aide and stock worker/order filler – two common jobs – earns about $40,000 less than the $111,500 needed just to cover basics like groceries and child care for two children.

That’s why we do what we do at United Way of Northern New Jersey. Our mission is to help ALICE families gain financial stability and to keep them from slipping into poverty over something as simple as a rising grocery bill. Because for too many families, it’s not just an extra few cents per egg. It’s another crack in the fragile foundation they’re trying to stand on.

Join us as we continue to raise awareness, produce eye-opening research, and put that research to work to create change. Together, we can build a stronger future for ALICE and all.

Start by exploring the data at UnitedForALICE.org/New-Jersey to learn more about ALICE families in our community. Then, visit UnitedWayNNJ.org to discover how you can help build a brighter, more stable future for ALICE and for all.

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