
Nearly Half of Maine Households Are Struggling to Afford Basic Living Costs
Well, here’s a depressing stat—42% of Maine households are struggling to keep up with the cost of just existing. This stat was revealed on United Ways of Southern Maine's Facebook page leading up to News Center Maine's Annual Project Heat Telethon, which raised $270,313 for Mainers in need of heating assistance.
These numbers are according to the latest ALICE Report from the United Ways of Maine. You may be wondering what ALICE stands for. "Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed." Basically, it means a whole lot of hardworking Mainers can’t actually afford to live here.
To put numbers into more perspective: United Ways of Southern Maine reported 243,485 households in Maine are barely scraping by, struggling with housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, phone bills, and—because we can’t forget Uncle Sam—taxes. You likely are, or at least know someone, that is busting their butt at work every day and still not make enough to survive.
If you’ve got a family of four, United Ways of Maine says you’ll need to bring in at least $91,536 a year just to cover the basics. That’s a huge jump from the $70,908 “survival budget” in 2021, thanks to inflation and the fact that pandemic assistance has basically disappeared.
Geographically speaking, News Center Maine stated that Washington County (51%) and Oxford County (52%) have the highest percentage of struggling households, while the wealthier pockets of southern Maine have the lowest rates.
Maine is now the 27th state to release an ALICE report, proving that financial hardship isn’t just a big city problem—it’s hitting small towns and rural areas just as hard. So, if it feels like making ends meet has gotten even harder, you’re not imagining things.
With all of this said comes urgent concern from economists and consumers with the tariffs were could likely be enacted on Canada and Mexico, which are expected to drive up the prices even more for items like produce, meat, gas, automobiles and electronics.
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