pandemic assistance softened the blow but it didn't prevent more families from living paycheck to paycheck a new report from the United Way of Northern New Jersey finds 157 000 more households in the state became financially insecure during 2021 that's a 14 jump from 2019 just prior to the pandemic the report dubs them Alice that's asset limited income constrained employed households whose incomes hit above the federal poverty line but are still unable to afford the basics for more on the report I'm joined by Dr Stephanie Hoops United for Alice National director Stephanie these reports always paint a pretty clear picture for us about financial hardships for folks in New Jersey what is it telling us this year it's the first time that we've had a chance to look at the impact of the pandemic on these families who were struggling before covet hit and to see how that's played out over the last few years so the main findings show that we're still in the middle of it and 2021 was a very unique year with um all kinds of competing forces we had uh increase in wages and low-wage jobs for the first time in a long time we had some extraordinary pandemic assistance but at the same time there was a lot of job loss hours cut back as well as inflation and then you layer on top of that some migration um with people moving out of densely populated areas and quarantining and all that so we had a lot going on and the way it settled was um the rate of financial hardship increased but it wasn't quite as bad as during the last economic disruption that we had the Great Recession what does that mean in terms of just how many folks here are struggling and what that struggle looks like I mean that's about a million and a half households in the state it's a pretty big number what does life look like for them right so um you know our official statistics show us 11 of households are struggling but the Alice data shows another 26 percent are struggling for that 37 which is 1.3 million households um so this isn't a small group over on the side this is people that we know that we interact with on a regular basis and during the pandemic they saved us uh essential workers were delivering our food and our medicine but we also saw close up a lot of households struggling uh with enough food with an internet connection for their kids to be working remotely so while the Public Health crisis portion of it may be behind us the financial burdens that it left according to your findings here are not what would you say is at the Crux of the problem well at the core is this mismatch between the basic cost of living and our household survival budget just looks at those basics of housing child care food Transportation Health Care smartphone plan and taxes um and then what jobs pay and so while we have seen some increase in low-wage jobs um it hasn't been as fast as inflation on those household Basics so it's that mismatch between where jobs are and what it costs to live in those places are there recommendations or signs that may be policy makers should be looking for Stephanie um great question because we conclude the report with some really important warning signs we are concerned about lack of savings for Alice households sustained levels of food insufficiency about a quarter of folks of households below the Alice threshold are behind on rent payments and we're also seeing sustained levels of anxiety nervousness that kind of thing and so those are telling us that the economic hardship is continuing and as many of the pandemic supports are going away this is not a time to be complacent we really need to be paying attention to Alice yeah those warning signs certainly key Dr Stephanie Hoops National director for United for Alice thank you so much thanks Brianna I really appreciate it [Music]