El informe indica que el 42% de los hogares del condado de Lubbock tienen dificultades financieras - fox34.com

The ALICE Report, which stands for Assets Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, measures households that fall into a gap most people don't see on paper. They're employed, they're not officially poor, but when rent, childcare, food, and transportation stack up, the math doesn't work. Jessica Adams, Lubbock United Way's Community Impact Director, said the report is built around what it actually costs to survive each month in the real world, not what federal formulas say it should cost.

The 2024 data makes clear this isn't a fringe situation. When four in ten households can't reliably cover necessities, it shows up in the workforce, in schools, and in the decisions families make just to get through the week. Childcare alone can push a working household into the red, and Lubbock's wage landscape doesn't always keep pace with what those costs demand.

The federal poverty level has long been criticized for undercounting financial hardship, and Lubbock's numbers suggest the gap between "not poor" and "doing okay" is wider than most official statistics show.