Arizona’s Economy, published quarterly by the Economic and Business Research Center at the Eller College of Management, is provided as an educational service by The University of Arizona. As part of The University of Arizona’s public mission to improve quality of life for the people of Arizona and the nation, the Economic and Business Research Center is dedicated to providing Arizona citizens and decision makers with high quality economic data and objective forecasts and analyses.

Arizona’s vulnerable populations are struggling on a daily basis but usually do so in silence, undetected by traditional radar and rankings, often unaware themselves of their high risk for being pushed or pulled into full crisis. Ineligible for financial assistance under strict eligibility guidelines, they don’t qualify as poor because vulnerable populations are not yet in full crisis. To be clear, this report is not about the “poor,” at least not in the limited sense of the word. It is about our underemployed wage earners, our single-parent households, our deployed or returning military members, our under-educated and unskilled workforce, our debt-ridden neighbors, our uninsured friends, our family members with no savings for an emergency, much less retirement.