Single parent
In the United States, 83% of single parents are mothers. Among this percentage of single mothers: 45% of single mothers are currently divorced or separated, 1.7% are widowed, 34% of single mothers never have been married. Although decades ago, having a child outside of marriage and/or being a single mother was not prominent. Census information from 1960 tells us that in that year, only nine percent of children lived in single parent families. Today four out of every ten children are born to an unwed mother.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
During the 1990s, poverty among single-mother and their families declined rapidly from 35.4% in 1992 to 24.7% in 2000, a new historic low. However, due to the fact that low-income mothers who left welfare are likely to be concentrated in low-wage occupations, the decline in public assistance caseloads has not translated easily into reduction in poverty. The number of poor female-headed families with children dropped from 3.8 million to 3.1 million between 1994 and 1999, a 22% decline compared to a 48% decline in caseloads. As a result, the share of working poor in the U.S. population rose, as some women left public assistance for employment but remained poor. Most studies have found that poverty is quite high among welfare leavers. Depending on the source of the data, estimates of poverty among leavers vary from about 48% to 74%.