How affordable is Macon? United Way report shows 57% of city has financial hardships

Despite Macon being dubbed as the most affordable city nationwide earlier this year with an average monthly home ownership cost of $1,892, a report released Wednesday from United Way shows locals struggle with living costs.

Twenty-two percent of Macon households lived under the federal poverty line in 2022, while an additional 35% lived from paycheck to paycheck, according to the United Way ALICE Report released on Wednesday that detailed comprehensive information from 2022, the most recent available data.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and describes families who live above the federal poverty level but do not earn enough to cover basic living essentials.

Macon’s percentage of income-challenged households climbed by 2% from 2021-2022, distancing further above the statewide 13% of Georgians living below the poverty line, the report shows.

George McCanless, United Way of Central Georgia’s CEO and president, said inflation and the expiration of pandemic-related public assistance money contributed to the increase of financial instability.

“As the costs of rent, food and other basic monthly necessities have increased, these families are still low in that position where they’re working but they’re not getting any kind of government benefits. Also, the tax credits have been reduced to pre-COVID levels,” McCanless said.

The report shows that in 2022, household costs in Bibb County for a family of two adults and two children was $78,456 —more than double the federal poverty level of $30,000 for a family of four.

Although salaries increased for most low-wage jobs in Georgia, the bigger paychecks did not provide relief for families’ needs.

“The monthly cost for a family of four in just the year has gone up 7.1%, and that doesn’t take in account of the change in tax credits” McCanless said. “Most of these families probably did not see a 7% increase in their income.”

The report also showed that racial disparities persisted in the rates of financial hardship; 21,519 Black households in Bibb County were either in poverty or ALICE in 2022, compared to 8,840 white households.

The recently updated ALICE report shows 31201 was Macon-Bibb County’s most financially-stressed ZIP code, citing a total of 75% of the region’s 3,585 households below the ALICE threshold in 2022.

United Way of Central Georgia adopted the ALICE framework last year. Going forward, McCanless said it will be the organization’s primary focus to help more working families reach financial stability.

“The thing about the ALICE families is that these are working people in the community that are, in most cases, doing the essential jobs that we all rely on,” McCanless said. “They’re all one major, unplanned incident away from being financially unstable, and it can spiral out of control very quickly.”

Macon families that are financially struggling can contact the United Way of Central Georgia for resources, such as the VITA Supports ALICE Households or the Brookdale Resource Center.