To save money, Alex Diaz-Papkovich, a postdoctoral research associate and vice chair of the Brown Postdoc Labor Organization, has started bulk ordering his groceries. He and his partner are insulating their house to avoid heating costs, and they’re front-loading purchasing small appliances in case tariffs increase the costs of these items in the coming months.
Diaz-Papkovich is not alone in struggling with a cost-of-living crisis that has been ongoing for years. A report released by United Way Rhode Island last month showed that in 2024, nearly 43% of Rhode Island households were struggling to afford basic needs like rent, groceries and health care.
The study is based on the “asset-limited, income-constrained, employed,” or ALICE metric. The ALICE measure serves as an alternative to existing methods of measuring affordability, such as the federal poverty level, under which 13% of Rhode Island households were considered to be in poverty in 2024. ALICE households lie above the Federal Poverty Level but make less than what they need to afford necessities where they live, according to the report.
For Diaz-Papkovich, the largest difficulty in the last year has been the cost of oil to heat his home. He told The Herald that he he used to pay $600 for a tank that would last for up to two months, but the same tank now costs around $1,000. In addition, his health insurance deductible increased — leaving him on the hook for a $500 charge for a new hearing aid — and his rent will increase by $200 this January.
Tom Sgouros — a research associate at the Data Science Institute who served on the advisory committee for the report — said that the federal poverty line has done a “totally inadequate job of tracking what it actually means to be poor or what it means to be getting by.” He added that the ALICE initiative aims to find a “more realistic number” by which to assess poverty levels.
The federal poverty line is “very binary. You are either poor or not poor,” said Brooke Havens, the senior director of strategy and analytics at United Way R.I. She said that the federal poverty line guidelines are based on outdated calculations, which don’t include modern costs like Wi-Fi and technology, and consider groceries the largest expense in most households.
Housing is the biggest expense in household budgets, followed by childcare, Havens said. According to a report published jointly by the Housing Network of Rhode Island and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a R.I. worker would have to make $33.95 an hour, or $70,617 annually, to afford a two-bedroom home.
“I don’t see prices coming down any time soon, and unfortunately the higher costs are literally everything: food, rent, heat, household goods, health insurance,” Diaz-Papkovich wrote in a Signal message to The Herald. He added that he thinks there isn’t a way to address all these factors other than to increase salaries.
Housing affordability was a key issue in the Providence mayoral primaries this year. State Rep. David Morales MPA’19 defeated current Mayor Brett Smiley by running on a pro-rent stabilization platform.
“In Providence alone, we’ve seen rents increase by over 40% over the last six years, and so despite a working person earning what may be above minimum wage, it is not nearly enough to keep up with housing costs,” Morales said in an interview with The Herald.
“When you match up the wages that people earn compared to what they have to pay for basic necessities, it is very clear that we have many families that are being forced to live in poverty because they’re spending over 30% of their income on something as basic as housing,” he said.
Miguel Youngs — the Democratic nominee for the Ward 1 city council seat — said that the report’s results did not surprise him. “I’ve been reading headlines like ‘Providence is the least affordable city in America’ … for the last really five or six years.”
“When I hear 43% of Rhode Islanders are struggling with cost of living, I’m one of them,” Youngs said. “I grew up in Rhode Island. I remember I could pay rent in Providence for half the price.”
In 2024, R.I. voters voted to pass a $120 million bond to fund the development of affordable housing.
“Quite frankly, we need to do even more,” said State Sen. Tiara Mack, who represents District 6, which includes downtown Providence.
Michaela Hanson is a senior staff writer covering community and culture.
