A new statewide affordability analysis estimates that 43% of Rhode Island households could not cover a basic household budget in 2024, a broader measure of financial strain than the federal poverty rate alone.

The 2026 State of ALICE report counted 446,751 households in Rhode Island. About 13% were below the Federal Poverty Level, while another 29% earned more than that benchmark but less than the report’s locally adjusted cost of necessities. Rounding the underlying counts produces the combined 43% estimate, or roughly 190,500 households.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The category is meant to identify households that do not meet the federal definition of poverty but still lack enough income for housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, technology and taxes in their county. United For ALICE’s methodology calculates separate survival budgets for different household types and locations, using public cost and income data.

The distinction is important because the federal threshold does not vary with local living costs outside Alaska and Hawaii. In 2024, it was $15,060 for one adult and $31,200 for a four-person family. By comparison, the Rhode Island analysis put the minimum annual budget for two adults with an infant and a preschooler at $111,000. Two full-time workers earning the state’s typical wages for a cook and a bank teller would have brought in a combined $86,810, leaving a gap of more than $24,000.

The report’s figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, including household tables and public-use microdata, paired with the project’s county-level expense calculations. That means the release describes conditions in 2024 rather than a real-time count of families struggling in September 2026. It is also an analytical threshold, not an official government eligibility standard.

Rhode Island’s estimated hardship rate exceeded the national rate of 41%. Across the country, the same analysis classified 13% of households as living in poverty and another 29% as ALICE. Rhode Island ranked 39th among the states and the District of Columbia when first place represented the lowest hardship rate.

The report does not prescribe one state policy or identify a single cause. Instead, it offers a cost benchmark that lawmakers, employers and service organizations can use when evaluating wages, housing, child-care expenses and benefit eligibility. The full Rhode Island report emphasizes that households below the threshold can be especially vulnerable to an unexpected vehicle repair, medical bill or loss of income because the survival budget contains little room for savings.

For residents and policymakers, the central finding is not that 43% of households qualify for public aid. It is that the official poverty measure captures only part of the state’s affordability problem, while a much larger group earns above that line without reaching the report’s estimate of what basic living costs require.