FoundersForge to partner with United Way to help flood-impacted small business
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — The United Way in East Tennessee has announced a partnership with FoundersForge to support small businesses impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Executive Director David Nelson joined First at 4 to describe how the cooperation will help small businesses throughout the region.
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They're your child's middle school teacher. They're the seniors bagging your groceries at Publix. They're the bank teller, the nurse, the neighbors. They might even be you. They're nearly half of all Floridians, and they're struggling to make ends meet, a new study finds. They're what United Way calls ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Per a recent report from the organization, most of those 4 million Florida households have a steady income, and they typically earn too much to qualify for state benefits like food or childcare assistance. But they're living paycheck to paycheck. Only three states — Louisiana, Mississippi and New York — have higher percentages of residents under such financial pressure, United Way found. Florida's affordability crisis is the major driver. A surge of transplants during and after the pandemic, rising costs, especially for housing and child care, and insufficient wages have pushed more Florida households to the financial brink. 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Their senior counterparts, those over the age of 65, are doing only slightly better — 55% of senior Florida households are economically strained, one of the highest rates in the country, Hoopes noted. 'Social Security gets older households above the poverty level,' she said, 'but not to the 'survival budget'' — United Way's measure of a household's basic monthly expenses. Per its calculation, the average two-adult, two-child household in Florida needs $74,000 a year to make ends meet. But costs of living vary widely across the state. To get by in Miami-Dade, where the cost of living is higher and 53% of households are under acute financial pressure, that same family needs nearly $90,000. But the wages paid by many of Florida's most common jobs aren't cutting it. Nearly 15% of registered nurses, 20% of elementary and middle school teachers, 40% of retail salespeople and 60% of cooks don't make enough to get by. 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