Female led single parent families

[1-Old-Man]

There is a discussion going on on Cspan right now covering various statistics related to children in the country. Its part of a series they are running on the Washington Journal titled "By the numbers". I was very much shocked to learn, from their discussion, that the rate of female led single parent families who are living at or below the poverty level was 47%. That's nearly half! My god, that number is appalling. Soon after that fact was mentioned they showed a chart/graph which showed what the rate had been over time. The chart was just on the screen for a moment but in that time I noticed something that they didn't mention. The chart went back to 1980 and the upper line was the percentage of those single-parent families living in poverty and the line was essentially flat. Got that? There was essentially no change in the percentage of single-parent female led families living in poverty in the last 32 years. How in gods name, given all the billions and billions of dollars that have been spent to alleviate poverty in this country can that be the case? This is an outrage, a pure and simple outrage.

[Lex]

1. Because the rich keep getting richer, and the poor and middle class keep

getting ripped off. Have you seen the chart showing how the wealth in this country is concentrated more and more in the hands of the few? That tells you the whole story--those with means in this country have never been concerned about actually eliminating poverty and helping the poor up and out of poverty.

[monmouth]

2. Females are paid less than males even when they do the same job...n/t

[xmas74]

10. Isn't that the truth!

I know from first hand experience.

[4th law of robotics]

13. Not really

when you account for hours worked, seniority, sick days, etc it works out to be almost exactly the same. The remainder can be explained away by (the less easily quantified but well noted) differences between men and women in demanding wages.


More likely it's that the women who are more likely to become pregnant while unmarried are those that have less to begin with (money and education). And once a kid comes around that uses up so many of your resources (money, time, sanity) that it leaves you with few options for getting out of that.

So they start out in a bad position, leading to single parenthood, leading to being fixed in that bad position permanently.

[antigone382]

21. Then the problem is that women disproportionately carry the burden of raising children...

...caring for sick family members, and attending to other duties essential to running a family, which demand time away from work. And our society as yet has failed to do one of two things: ensure that these burdens are shared more equally between men and women (obviously men can't get pregnant or breastfeed, so there are limits to that), or compensate women for the as yet undervalued time they spend on these unpaid, undervalued, but essential duties.

It is no small thing that our social and familial relations are set up in a way that almost guarantees a woman who has a family will be unable to make the same income as a man in the same position, who also has a family. I want to go to grad school and have a meaningful career. I also want to have a kid. But without an atypical level of support from the school, the job, and the male partner, that will not be possible for me.

[enlightenment]

27. Are you suggesting that all (or most) female-led single parent households

are led by women who 'became pregnant while unmarried'?

Statistically, 55% of female single parents are divorced, separated, or widowed.
Only a third receive any child support from the non-custodial parent - of those that do, the average amount is $300 a month.

25% have a college degree.

Most single female led households didn't 'start out in a bad position' - they wound up in a bad position.

Rather judgmental post - perhaps you didn't mean it the way it sounds?

http://www.legalmomentum.org/our-work/women-and-poverty/resources--publications/single-mothers-snapshot.pdf

[silentwarrior]

30. Not all single parents remain, as you say, "fixed" in

unfortunate circumstances. You seem to have a very biased view of lone parents, no?

I myself am a mother of three children and I have raised them up alone without support from their father.

I am currently studying part-time to gain qualifications to help me support my family when I am able to work full time again.

I lived with my childrens father as man and wife but never married, and that was through my choice.

Please dont assume all single parents have not been educated.

[slackmaster]

3. I think the core problem is that some males (not men) don't take responsibility for their children

How in gods name, given all the billions and billions of dollars that have been spent to alleviate poverty in this country can that be the case?

The War on Poverty was never intended to end poverty.

[seabeyond]

4. billions and billions of dollars that have been spent to alleviate poverty in this country

i dont get what you are expecting.

it seems to me the money we spend to alleviate the poor is a daily cost to feed and shelter. it is not handing then lots of money to get out of poor. what u.s. spends on the poor would not change that a person financial position by any relative measure.

i am not getting what you are saying.

[Downwinder]

5. In my experience if you found a chart that went back to the 1940s

it would show about the same.

[AngryAmish]

6. or the 1440s

[Downwinder]

8. Probable so. I can only speak for growing up in a single parent family

in the 1940s.

[AngryAmish]

15. I don't see how single parents do it.

I have two young ones, 18 months and 4.5 years. My wife goes away on business and I'm a wreck after a week. I can't imagine doing it without full-time help. And what if you get sick?

[dembotoz]

7. compared to current attitudes the war of poverty was wonderful

at least someone was trying vs the hope the die soon stuff coming from the gop

[LeftinOH]

9. Men who impregnate women, then flee the "scene of the crime" are the problem..

..not big business, not the government, not the political climate, etc. The number of female-led single parent families whose head of household is an actual widow is probably a very small part of the percentage cited.

Failing to control one's own fertility is bad enough (for either men or women), but men who are, ahem, especially generous with their essence are b.a.s.t.a.r.d.s.

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. We need a male oral or implantable contraceptive. n/t

[mathematic]

11. Transfer payments are not counted as income for the purposes of determining official poverty

Therefore the the trillions spent to alleviate poverty don't actually change poverty rates. Sometimes people mistake that to mean that these transfer payments are ineffective in alleviating poverty.

A better way to measure poverty than the usual pre-tax money income threshold is by consumption, which would include the effects of transfer payments. This would allow us to better determine the effectiveness of our anti-poverty policies and proposals.

Here's a link to the BLS's page on experimental poverty measures. It has a lot of good research reports on the various features of a new poverty measurement, which include more than just adding in transfer payments.
http://www.bls.gov/pir/spmhome.htm

[Romulox]

14. This is as compelling as your argument that modern workers' pay hasn't stagnated!

I mean, what with used cars being so good these days...

[mathematic]

16. So you disagree that current poverty measurement is flawed and should be reformed?

And specifically, you're against the one reform I mentioned? Any particular reasons why?

[Romulox]

19. I think you're like a mystery writer--you start with the ending and then work your way backwards.

[mathematic]

22. I suppose that's better than losing the plot entirely.

Here, I'll lay it out for ya.

-Democrats are in favor of policies that help poor people. Examples include food stamps, the earned income tax credit, subsidized housing, and many other good programs.

-Due to the way poverty is calculated, these programs have no directly measurable benefits. For example, officially, the earned income tax credit has helped alleviate no family's poverty because poverty only depends on pretax income.

-This leads to a political/PR barrier to getting programs like these passed. The OP itself contains the germane misunderstanding: we're spending tons of money and poverty is not being affected. Yet, the very definition of "poverty" means that no amount of aid to the poor will effect the poverty rate.

-In an effort to eliminate this political barrier and, more generally, to collect better data to create better policy, democrats SUPPORT reforming the the measurement of poverty, including the reform I mentioned.

As for mystery... you're the one making (coded?) analogies. Here's how I interpreted your response to me. You think that I have certain conclusions and I try to fit my reasoning to support them, rather than let the reasoning lead to my conclusions. I even suspect that you mean that I have "right-wing" conclusions. You're wrong on both accounts. I think our exchanges would go better if you just used plain, explicit language.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. Interesting.

Do you have a link to a more in-depth discussion of this?

thanks in advance.

[mathematic]

25. Sure

Here's a good discussion about the background and the reforms:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/08/new_poverty_measure.html

For more technical discussion see my bls link above.

Also, here's census bureau version. Obama wanted the new measure to go from "research" to "production" but it went unfunded in the FY'11 budget.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental/overview.html

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. Thanks for this. Good stuff.

But I dispute that "geographical variation" should be a factor in determining FPL.

[Romulox]

29. If you follow the previous thread about workers' pay stagnating, you'll not expect a dialogue. nt

[4th law of robotics]

12. I would be interested in a seeing a comparison between states

with discounted/widely available contraceptive options and those where it is less readily available.

[hack89]

17. Teenage single parenthood is the sure road to poverty

that alone is reason to make birth control free and available in schools.

If these kids can make into their 20's without having a child, their chances of escaping poverty are much greater. Teenage parenthood closes doors that may never reopen.

[meaculpa2011]

20. Birth control may not be the issue.

My 19 year old daughter has two friends that became pregnant within a few months of each other. They both wanted a baby and neither wanted anything to do with the inseminator.

In one case grandma and grandpa now have "Golden Years" responsibilities they never anticipated. In the other case, it's grandma, grandpa, great grandma and great grandpa.

My wife taught in the NYC schools for nearly forty years. She tells similar stories.

[hughee99]

18. Since many families need 2 incomes just to stay afloat

it's not shocking that a family with only 1 parent is already stuck behind the 8-ball. I'm not saying it's good, just that it's not surprising.

[haele]

26. Part of the problem is that the costs of basic living still go up and wages are flat -

I remember listening to some of the discussions on the policies of Johnson's "Great Society" in the mid-60's.
The help that would get a single parent family out of poverty would be if there was a supplemented income that could be saved or spent more efficiently - like in purchasing a fuel efficient, reliable vehicle to get back and forth to work in, or provide her children with hobbies and interests that will further their self-confidence and ability to grow into intelligent, productive adults that can take advantage of opportunities. An efficient spending and saving routine is how most working class families get ahead, how the middle class thrived from the late 1940's through the early 1970's, and basically is how a stable economy can continue.
I grew up with or lived around family and neighbors with a single income in a relatively low-skill job (grocery store produce manger, general handyman, gas station mechanic, insurance agent, teacher) who not only earned enough to raise a small family, but saved enough to eventually buy a house or car or send their kids to camp in the summer and still be fairly comfortable in retirement. Even some single parents were usually able to earn enough to get by until the kids had grown, with only a bit of assistance compared to what is available now. It wasn't easy, but it was for the most part do-able, and as assistance increased and good jobs were still available, the family would have a better life and the children go further as they grew up.
By the early 1970's some of the very poor - sharecroppers and itinerant workers - were able to leverage some social programs to get their children into college instead of working with them in the fields or on construction sites.

That's what food stamps, housing assistance, education and child-care assistance was supposed to originally do; enable the poor to put aside enough that when they eventually work their way out of poverty and into the working class, they can break free of government assistance and have the resources to be able to manage for a couple months if something goes wrong. The few who are unable, either mentally or physically, to work a productive job still have some safety net where their children could still have opportunities to get out of poverty even though they couldn't leave it themselves.

As a plutocracy becomes the norm and American society views the citizenry as simply a workforce comprised of semi-skilled, fungible tools or disposable consumers on the way to a profit, the concern is not "how can we improve the lives of our citizens?", but "how much do we have to spend on our citizens?".

The other part of the problem is that instead of looking at assistance as an investment, which is what it was originally supposed to be, modern American society looks at assistance to the poor as "charity".
The dark side of charity is the assumption that the person who requires assistance is not an independent citizen, but a dependent - about the same social level as a pet or orphan - something that is not capable of taking care of itself - but as you don't want it running around in the street and ruining the ambiance of the neighborhood, you buy it and take control over it, directing the way it is going to live. And if it doesn't agree to your dominance or patronization, you just get rid of it - throw it away or send it somewhere else.



Haele