Single Mothers and Poverty

Single Mothers and Poverty

Poverty is an unpleasant that drips on dignity until all dignity is damaged away. Poverty is a chisel that chips on respect until respect is damaged away. Some of you state that you would do certain thing in my position, and perhaps you would, for the first week or the first month, but for year after year after year? (Berger: 63-82)

In 1970, 48 per hundred of all poor families were single-mother families. By 1993, families going by single mothers had developed to 60 per hundred of all poor families with children. The number of single mothers expanded between 1970 and 2000, from 3 million to 10 million; over the identical time border, the number of single fathers expanded furthermore, from 393,000 to 2 million.

As appalling as these numbers are, some contend that the government guidelines, which work out the poverty grade, obscure the genuine scope of this American experience. Children have restored vintage persons as the nation's poorest group. It's been called “the feminization of poverty”: Mothers go under underneath the poverty line, and their young children are dragged down with them. The answers suggested are well renowned, considering only with the aftermath of the disaster and not ever its cause. More than half of poor women in America lift their young children alone. (Connelly: 2-5)

In 1970, they going just over 7 percent of all families; by 1995, the number covered 12 per cent. That's a gigantic leap -- almost twice -- and it was echoed in the numbers for the very poor. Single mothers accounted for 24 percent of those in the base decile in 1970 and a staggering 40 percent in 1995. (Anderson: 420-62)

Full-time, year-round work at smallest salary places a woman with two young children $3,000 underneath the poverty line - ...