Each month Fatima Johnson, Brightlane’s Community Engagement & Education Strategist, will be sharing some educational information and resources as we continue to learn together. This month she is helping us learn more about poverty & the affordability crisis.
Monthly during the school year, Brightlane Learning hosts Let’s Learn Together sessions, a space for staff, volunteers, board members, and community members to build relationships and engage in the kind of honest, informed conversation that deepens our understanding of what’s affecting our community, especially our most vulnerable neighbors: children experiencing homelessness.
This month, we explored poverty and the affordability crisis, drawing on framing from a previous book club read, Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond, to help contextualize data on poverty in Indiana and nationwide. Desmond describes poverty not as a single line people fall below, but as “a tight knot of hardships” housing, health, finances, and education problems that compound one another.
The Numbers:
- In 2024, the U.S. poverty measure estimated 35.9 million people were living in poverty, though many researchers believe the true figure is higher, since the measure hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since it was created in the 1960s and doesn’t account for ALICE households (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed).
- In Indiana, 12% of households fall below the official poverty line, and another 26% are ALICE, together, 38% can’t afford a basic cost of living, close to the 41% national average.
- A family of four in Indiana now needs roughly $74,000 a year to cover basic needs with no savings or emergency fund.
- Indiana’s minimum wage has held at $7.25 per hour since 2009.
- Indiana’s eviction filing rate (8.9%) outpaces the national rate (7.8%), and the average wait for a housing voucher here is 25 months.
- 46.7% of Indiana renters spend 30%+ of income on rent, just under the 49.6% national rate.
- Indiana’s child poverty rate is 14.9%, with a 7-point high school graduation gap between higher- and lower-income students.
To learn more about the hardship many of our neighbors face in Indiana and across the country, visit the resources below.
Read:
- Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
- The State of ALICE in Indiana
- What is the poverty rate in Indiana?