Single Mothers Face While Living In Poverty

Can a single mother of three working full time for minimum wage afford to pay ' by herself ' for food, clothing, transportation, childcare, occupational training and medical care? Without government aid, the obvious answer is no. Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), as described by Robert Kuttner, is a government aid program designed 'to help all of the working poor rise out of poverty.' It includes tuition reimbursements, wage supplements, and above all, childcare? (Kuttner). It creates a more equal opportunity for those at a disadvantage to improve themselves and their situation. TANF, 'which limits the time families can remain on welfare, appears to be a smashing success' (Cohn). First, if eligibility were to become stricter, seeking

Everyday in the United States there are families who struggle to make ends meet and struggle to fully provide for their families. Since the 1960s, poverty in the United States has only increased dramatically. It is said that one in six Americans today is living in poverty (What is poverty?). In this book, we learn about different families and their struggles. The information in this book describe instances about welfare, different areas of the population where there are more occurrences of poverty, and a few different families experiences of how they make it day by day to survive. Some of these common organizations that help families that live in poverty may include, food stamps, certain food programs (if

Imagine a single mother who has has the task of taking care of multiple children, all on a minimum wage budget. This mother’s mind is overwhelmed with worries. Will she be able to pay next month's rent? WIll she be able to put food on the table for all of her children. The single mother lives each and every day with this anxiety, and even with government assistance: Is it enough to live comfortably?

The effects of the 1996 welfare reform bill helped declined caseloads on the social and economic well-being of fragile families, single mothers, and children. Although, the welfare reform was documented for making several positive changes such as reducing poverty rates, lowering the out of-wedlock childbearing, and formulated a better family structure, it is undeniable that poverty remained high among single mothers and their children. The reality of the matter was that most welfare recipients experienced serious barriers to maintain a stable employment due to their lack of skills, not having anyone available to take care of their young children when they leave for work as well as not gaining long-time employment with decent pay to help foster the family. As a result, most poor women and children were faced with the instability of economic and social future as welfare eligibility exhausted their efforts of supporting their families.

Medicaid, WIC Programs, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as “food stamps”, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and HUD which deals with housing are only a few of the programs that are available for the poor and underemployed today. These government programs cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. State and federal government try every year to reduce programs. In Mississippi, Medicaid has been reduced although children and the disabled are still covered. SNAP commonly known as food stamps have also been reduce and restricted to balance both the state and federal government. At the height of the recession, the last few years, has increased the number of single bread winner families seeking help by applying for government welfare programs. We often hear of people selling their food stamps for things that are not approved. These stories are used by the people who do not think that tax money should be used to support people who do not work. Changing the name of “welfare” to TANF has not slowed the

When TANF first started, there was an unknown decline in the number of families receiving cash assistance, and an unknown increase in the share of single mothers working, more in the ones who had less than a high school education. There was a decline in caseloads at about 60% over the past 18 years. In 1990 the was a fall of poverty rate among families, but started rising again in 2000. The incline on deep poverty has grown a lot from 1996-2013. It has grown from 2.7 million to 3 million. Employment in single mothers improved significantly in the early years of TANF, however they started declining more than a decade ago. The percentage went from 51% in 1992, to 76% in 2000, but fell back to 63% in 2013. While some people who left TANF went to work, others just left because they stopped because of they time limits or because they did not reach the requirements. There has been research that shows that these have barriers such

They do not have a significant other 37 percent of single-parents families lack self sufficiency and are officially poor compared with 7 percent of married-couple families (Rector). Welfare can help the underachieving single parents that do not have a stable income. This proves and shows that some individuals can and want to be

But federal aid programs have not helped the poor become self-sufficient or reduced the poverty levels. Ever since welfare has been created it has weakened the American work ethic and encouraged out-of-wedlock births. That unfortunate “tradition” keeps getting passed down from generation to generation (DeHaven). An abundant amount of families out there truly need assistance. The troublesome reality is that the number of people trying to take whatever they can get outweighs the number that’s just trying to get back up on their

Single mothers are struggling with only one job to make enough for a living for herself and her child. Single mothers are working very hard for very low pay. Mothers that are living paycheck to paycheck and are pushing their budget to the max eventually have to start applying for government assistance (Alexa). “Passing the Raise the Wage Act would especially help women, particularly women of color. Women are the majority (56 percent) of workers who would benefit from increasing the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020”(Cooper, Gallagher,Vogtman). Single Women have to create strategies to make ends meet on low wages. They have to deal with all sorts of issues. (Chonce)

Food insecurity causes health issues such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and early mortality among young single mothers. According to author Christine A. Stevens young single mothers are affected by food insecurity in two ways “first, the stress of food insecurity can lead to compounding issues of depression for this mother, second, food choice.” Factors that assist these problems are socioeconomic status and the ability to obtain adequate nutrition. These young single mothers do not have enough money to give nutritional food to their families. With limited money they do not have a choice for nutritional food and according to Stevens are forced to buy “inexpensive, high fat, high carbohydrates food” (Stevens 163). In

Single mothers are being affected by the cuts on the food stamps. Most of the times this singles mothers have to pay for rent, for the care of the child, clothes and all theirs needs. Several times with their salary is not enough to afford for a good quality food, for their children and when they apply to receive assistance from the city which are called the food stamps, it not enough to buy a good quality food for their child's. According to (Thenation.com) single mothers are the one who work more hours and yet still have the highest rate of poverty.therefore, in this case not only single mothers are affected by this cuts made by the governments, but also their children's. Childrens are also affected in differents ways, for example this single

Edin and Lein wanted to discover the surviving strategies of single mothers who are on welfare or work on a low-waged job. They argue “neither welfare nor low wage work gives single mothers enough income to meet their families’ expenses” (253). To find out the set of survival strategies of single mothers to make ends meet Edin and Lein interviewed 379 low income single mothers. They chose their interviewees from different cities, different aged group, and different ethnic background. Most mothers who are on welfare wanted to find a job and be out of the welfare but the primary problem that single mothers face was that “family economics”. With the minimum wage income it was impossible for the single mothers to bring the ends meet. Neither working nor being on welfare was enough to survive therefore mothers who are on welfare supported their budget by generating substantial supplementary income. Edin and Lein states that “welfare recipients generated extra income by working at side jobs, obtaining cash from network members, community groups and local charities”. They also get cash help from the family members, child’s fathers, and from a boyfriend. Because they were afraid to lose welfare benefits they did not tell anyone about the extra income they have. To survive they needed both the welfare benefits and the extra income. It was very difficult to establish a trust with the interviewees in the beginning because they were afraid if they talk about it they might lose the

This literature review will focus on the different types of struggles that low-income single mothers face. This review will include a broad overview of the published literature on the issues of welfare, childcare and employment that low-income single mothers challenge. The review will depict the difficulty low-income single mother’s face in term of raising a child on their own and the lack of support that they receive. Poverty amongst low-income single mothers is caused by lack of financial aid. Low-income single mothers endure the hardship of raising a child and paying numerous bills for survival with such minimal assistance.

Problem behaviors in single parent homes could be the result of low income within the household. It was reported that 80% of single mother households had incomes of $15,000 of below (Peden, 2004). Loss of economic security can cause many problems in a single parent household. Economic problems may cause a loss of attachment between the parent and the child (Hollist &McBroom, 2006). Poverty has shown to cause poor mental health in single mothers and therefore having a bad influence on children. Poor mental health also had an effect on the mother's ability to perform at work or simply left them unemployed.

Polakow, Valerie. Life on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1993. Print.