MEET ALICE
Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed
More than 1 in 3 Greenville County households can't afford the basics.
Many of them work full time. The paycheck just doesn’t stretch far enough to cover rent, child care, food, a car and health care in the county they call home.
The poverty line misses most of them.
ALICE is a research measure from United For ALICE. It stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and it counts people who earn more than the Federal Poverty Level but less than it costs to live here.
The poverty line was set in the 1960s and it uses one number for the whole country. It counts 1 in 10 Greenville County households. ALICE finds nearly two and a half times that many more who are working and still falling behind.
One adult
Two adults, a baby and a preschooler
Annual costs for Greenville County, 2024. The cost of basics covers housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, a phone plan and taxes. Nothing for savings, emergencies or extras.
What it takes to get by in Greenville County.
Pick a household. This is the bare minimum budget. No eating out, no birthday presents, no savings account.
- Every year
- $0
- Full-time hourly pay needed
- $0
- Poverty line for this household
- $0
Source: United For ALICE Household Survival Budget, Greenville County, 2024. Hourly pay assumes 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. "Child" means school age; "baby" is an infant in child care.
The paycheck math doesn't add up.
Costs for the basics keep climbing. Wages for a lot of everyday jobs haven’t caught up.
$17.42
An hour, full time. That’s what one adult with no kids needs just to cover the basics in Greenville County.
$7.25
South Carolina’s minimum wage. It hasn’t moved since 2009.
44%
Of full-time workers in South Carolina don’t earn enough to support themselves and one school-age child.
The people who keep Greenville running.
They cook your lunch, ring up your groceries, stock the shelves, build the houses and teach your kids. Here’s the share of South Carolina workers in some of the state’s most common jobs whose household income falls short of the basics.
Statewide data, full-time workers, 2024. Median hourly wage shown under each job. A small sample of common jobs. Hardship reaches every line of work.
Some Greenville County households carry more of the weight.
70%
of single moms raising kids
57%
of households led by someone under 25
52%
of households led by someone 65 or older
50%
of single dads raising kids
32%
of singles and couples with no kids
11%
of married couples with kids
Share of each Greenville County household type below the ALICE Threshold, 2024.
It reaches every corner of the county.
In ZIP code 29611 more than half of households come up short. In 29681 it’s about 1 in 5. The highest rates sit in places like Parker, Judson, Dunean, Sans Souci and Slater-Marietta, many of them built around Greenville’s textile mills.
Share of households below the ALICE Threshold by ZIP code, Greenville County, 2024.
One thing shouldn't unravel everything
When the budget has no margin, a flat tire or a doctor’s bill turns into a missed shift, a late rent payment, a harder month after that. Every week comes with a trade-off.
Pay the power bill or fill the gas tank to get to work
Buy groceries or pick up the prescription
Pay more to live near work or spend more on a longer commute
Pay for child care or stay home and lose the paycheck
6.3%
Yearly rise in the cost of basics in South Carolina from 2021 to 2024. More than double the pace before the pandemic.
35%
Of households below the ALICE Threshold in our region have three months of emergency savings. For everyone else it’s 71%.
40%
Of South Carolina renters below the Threshold spend half their income or more on rent and utilities.
We're listening first.
The numbers tell us how many families are stretched thin. The families themselves can tell us what would help most. We’re asking working households across Greenville County what gets in the way and what would make the biggest difference. What we hear will shape how United Way of Greenville County walks alongside families as they work toward stability.
Sources: United For ALICE, The State of ALICE in South Carolina: 2026 Update on Financial Hardship; ALICE in Greenville County County Report and 2026 South Carolina ALICE Data Sheet (2024 data); American Community Survey 2010 to 2024. Savings data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, South Atlantic region. Poverty guidelines from U.S. HHS, 2024.