Hartford, CT – Connecticut United Ways advocate for ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. In Connecticut, nearly 40% of households are living below the ALICE Income Threshold, which means that they are working hard, living paycheck to paycheck, but still not earning enough to make ends meet. Black and Hispanic households disproportionally represent these 552,710 households, with the percentage of ALICE households varying from town to town. In some communities the population struggling financially is as high as 68%.
As part of our effort to explore and secure economic equity for these households, Connecticut United Ways are joining together to offer a virtual conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Matthew Desmond on Tuesday, February 27 at noon. Dr. Desmond states that “to understand the causes of poverty, we must look beyond the poor." Moderated by Janée Woods Weber, Executive Director of She Leads Justice, you can learn new ways of thinking about financial insecurity and help us imagine solutions so that all Connecticut residents have the opportunity to thrive, like passing a permanent, refundable CT Child Tax Credit so that Connecticut households have dependable and flexible income. The public is invited to join this important conversation, by registering at: https://bit.ly/DesmondCT.
Following the conversation with Matthew Desmond, you can participate in a powerful five-day email series “Equity Challenge: Abolishing Poverty.” Each day’s email will include a 10-minute opportunity to take a deeper dive into the causes of poverty, racism and financial inequity, and will explore how you can take action to create meaningful and powerful change. Register for the Equity Challenge here: https://forms.ctunitedway.org/equity-challenge/
For more information about the conversation with Matthew Desmond and Equity Challenge: Abolishing Poverty, visit https://alice.ctunitedway.org/desmond/. You can purchase Matthew Desmond’s books at your local bookstore or order online at https://bookshop.org/p/books/poverty-by-america-matthew-desmond/18603208?ean=9780593239919.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:
MacArthur “Genius” and Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond is the author of the instant #1 New York Times bestseller Poverty, by America and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Praised as “an extraordinary feat of reporting and ethnography” by The Washington Post, Evicted transformed our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a uniquely American problem. His latest, Poverty, by America, has been praised by the New Yorker as “urgent and accessible” and by Esquire as “another paradigm-shifting inquiry into America’s dark heart.” Drawing on history, research, and original reporting, the book reimagines the debate on poverty, and makes a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology, and the founder and principal investigator of The Eviction Lab (www.evictionlab.org) at Princeton University. Desmond is a New York Times Magazine contributing writer, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New Yorker and The Chicago Tribune.
ABOUT CONNECTICUT UNITED WAYS
The mission of United Way of Connecticut is to help Connecticut residents thrive by providing information, education and connection to services. United Way of Connecticut is recognized by the Hartford Business Journal as a 2023 Best Workplace in Connecticut. Learn more at 211ct.org. Visit our media center for media requests and inquiries.