Report says 37% of Alaska households couldn't cover basic costs, with rural areas hit hardest

Editor's note - Sept 29, 12:15 am: This story was updated to add rural poverty figures and clarify which numbers are statewide.

A cook and a bank teller working full time in Alaska together earn about $86,600 a year. If they're raising an infant and a preschooler, that's nearly $12,000 less than it takes to cover the basics, according to a report released Monday. Even if all four family members had received 2024's $1,702 Permanent Fund dividend, the report says, the family would still come up almost $5,000 short.

The report, from United For ALICE, a research project led by United Way of Northern New Jersey, with United Way of Anchorage as its Alaska partner, estimates that about 101,000 Alaska households, or 37%, couldn't afford the basics in 2024 by its measure. That includes housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and phone and internet service, plus taxes.

Most of those households weren't poor by the federal definition. About 24,000 fell below the poverty line. The rest earned more than that but still not enough to cover the report's budget. The group calls them ALICE, short for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.

The gap was widest in rural western Alaska. In the Kusilvak Census Area, the report counts 73% of households below its threshold. It was 63% in the Bethel Census Area and 61% in the Northwest Arctic Borough, compared with 32% in Anchorage and Juneau. In Kusilvak, about a third of households were below the federal poverty line itself, nearly four times the statewide rate.

In the report's budget, child care is the biggest single cost for a young family. The report's bare-minimum budget for a single adult was about $37,000 a year. For two adults with an infant and a preschooler, it was about $98,000, with child care at about $1,700 a month, and food and housing at about $1,600 each, the biggest pieces. Among household types, single mothers had the highest rate, at 69%. Households headed by someone under 25 were at 67%. Among Alaska Native and American Indian households, 60% fell below the threshold, a figure the report says likely understates the true rate because those households tend to be undercounted in the census.

The measure is the group's own, and it sets a much higher bar than the federal poverty line, which the group calls outdated. Its budget includes a 10% cushion for unexpected costs, and household income comes from Census survey data, which doesn't count benefits such as food assistance or Medicaid. The report also notes that dividend income may be underreported, especially in rural areas. On the other side, it says its transportation and health care costs, based on state averages, likely underestimate what rural households pay. It adjusts food costs by region using a state cost study and says subsistence hunting and fishing, while important for food, require cash for fuel, boats and gear.

By the report's count, that middle group has grown quickly statewide. From 2010 to 2024, the number of households earning above the poverty line but below the threshold rose 56%, while the total number of households in Alaska rose 7%. Alaska's statewide rate was below the national rate of 41%.