There’s a name for working families who are surviving but not thriving in Rhode Island: ALICE

Remember when they were called the working poor?

By Janine L. Weisman, Rhode Island Current

In her neon yellow shirt and pink hard hat, Ashlynn Jorge extended her arm and held her palm out to halt traffic approaching a sidewalk construction site on Kay Street in Newport shortly before 10 o’clock Thursday morning.

But the 26-year-old union laborer can’t stop the bills. 

South County numbers are lower

Jorge earns about $4,800 a month. But rent for the three-bedroom house in East Providence where she lives with her boyfriend and their two children, ages 6, and 3, is $2,500 a month. The lease on her Hyundai Palisade is $767 a month. Food, utilities and other expenses eat up the rest of her income.

It costs less for her boyfriend, also 26, to stay home and take care of their son and daughter than for him to work and pay for childcare, she said.

“Live paycheck to paycheck,” said Jorge, who gets up each workday at 4:30 a.m. “I try to give my kids what they deserve, so I try my best to work overtime sometimes.” 

The gap between earnings and the cost of basic living is the focus of a new report from the United Way of Rhode Island released Thursday morning at the same time Jorge and her coworkers were rebuilding a section of sidewalk.

Jorge’s income is well over the $33,000 federal poverty threshold for a household of four. But that still means her family is among the 1 in 3 Rhode Island households working and struggling to afford adequate food, housing and health care, unable to save money for the future.

There’s a name for these households: ALICE.

Important Charlestown biz at two Town Council meetings this week

 

Fellow Charlestown Residents, We have two important Charlestown Town Council meetings this week, on Monday and Tuesday. The first Town Council meeting of July will held on Monday, July 8, at 7:00 p.m. in the Town Hall Council Chambers.   The full agenda for Monday's 7 p.m. meeting can be viewed here. Topics of interest include: Possible appointments to the Budget Commission to fill two term expirations. Applications have been received from Michael E. Marcelynas, Gregory J. Plunkett, and Richard J. Sartor. (The applications may be read starting on page 201 of the agenda packet.) Discussion of possible properties for affordable housing initiatives (starting on page 233 of the agenda packet). Discussion of a initiating creation of new plan of action for the Town to better communicate information of public interest (starting on page 237 of the agenda packet). On Tuesday, July 9, at 7:00 p.m. in the Town Hall Town Council Chambers, the Town Council will hold a Public Hearing to consider eleven proposals to amend the Town Charter. Some of these are significant, such as putting elected Town Council and Planning Commission members on 4-year staggered terms. Others are to provide clarification or to conform with State laws. The Council may vote to include some or all of the proposed changes on the ballot for public vote in the November election. The list of proposed changed can be read in the agenda packet here. We hope to see you there. With Thanks, Tim Quillen, Chair Charlestown Residents United Paid for by Charlestown Residents United P.O. Box 412 Charlestown, RI 02813 Visit our Website

Charlestown Residents United | PO Box 412 | Charlestown, RI 02813 US