Poverty Increases In North Florida

WFSU | By Gabrielle Bolden

Published February 11, 2019 at 5:15 PM EST

This is a photo of a poster from United Way of Florida

The number of North Florida households in poverty is increasing. Those figures mirror a statewide report.

The number of Big Bend households classified as ALICE has increased by two percent. ALICE is short for Asset, Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed. The upward trend is not a surprise to United Way of the Big Bend President, Katrina Rolle.

“If you look at the report the trends are continuing upward. The last ALICE report, which was the 2017 report, it was 41 percent. 41 percent of the people were in the ALICE population or within poverty. And now we are at 43 percent,” she says.

Meanwhile, The Florida Chamber of Commerce’s, Jerry Perish, says Tallahassee zip code, 32304, has the highest rate of impoverished children in the state.

“In 32304 there’s 1,837 kids under 18 living in poverty. That’s a 49.5 percent poverty rate. So, that’s nearly half the kids or right at half the kids living in that zip code.”

18 percent of children are impoverished in Leon County compared to 22 percent of kids in the state.