Low Income Single Mothers Need Education to Turn Low Income into a Living Income

Working Single Mothers and Welfare Reform Need Education as the Escape from Poverty

Low income single mothers have been caught in an endless cycle of recurring poverty due to welfare reform policies that promote work for the sake of work rather than education to escape poverty.  A single mother welfare policy for low-income mothers that promotes education, promotes parents and children out of poverty and into self-sufficiency. 

Low income single mothers have struggles that are invisible to the male dominated halls of policy makers.  These struggles can be conquered by issuing policy directives that promote education as an escape to poverty, rather than work for the sake of work.  Education has been proven to be a determining factor between low income single mothers who cycle in and out of welfare, and low income single mothers who exit and remain off welfare.

Low Income Single Mothers Cycling Through Poverty in an Infinite Circle

The majority of low income single mothers live in a dizzying and infinite cycle of going in and out of poverty.  Poverty cycles for low income mothers can be broken down into three groups.  The majority of single mothers in a comparative study (56% in 2001) were poverty cyclers.  Poverty cyclers are low income single mothers who have recurring poverty and non-poverty spells.  Poverty leavers (28% in 2001) leave poverty and stay out.  The minority of low-income single mothers are poverty returners (16% in 2001), and drown in the quicksand of poverty permanently.

The US Administration on Children and Families did a comparative statistical study with these three groups and found that poverty leavers were more educated and healthier than poverty returners, even with wage similarities prior to poverty exit.  Single mothers with a lack of education were very likely to drown in the quicksand of permanent poverty.  The two year government study, completed in 2004 based on statistics from 2001, states the obvious.  Education and health care through single mother welfare programs and single mother subsidies can promote an exit from poverty.

Less statistically significant obvious factors were that low income single mothers with single mother support from other family members were more likely to leave poverty permanently, and low income single mothers that married were more likely to exit poverty permanently.  The study did not follow these single mothers and compile future statistics on the implications of children and divorce.

Single mothers who left poverty and stayed out, made an average of $3,000 a month.  Those drowning in poverty, survived on $1,000 a month.  Those who cycled in and out, averaged just under $2,000 a month.

Higher Quality Low Income Single Mother Jobs Promote Poverty Exit

It's of little surprise that single mothers who had a full-time job with the highest wages and were provided health insurance through their employer were more likely to exit permanently out of poverty.  The majority of jobs for single mothers that precipitated a permanent exit from poverty were in professional and technical fields.  Very few single mothers who left poverty permanently were employed in production work – yet these are the types of manual jobs that welfare reform promotes, and that the non-educated are employed in.  Education makes professional employment a possibility for low income single mothers.

Low income single mothers that cycled in and out of poverty, and low income single mothers stuck in poverty were primarily employed in the service industry. This includes seasonal restaurant work. Food service is the largest employing sector of service workers.  Poverty cyclers and returners also had higher employment rates in production and construction jobs than those fortunate enough to leave the vicious trap of poverty.

Low Income single mothers need education to exit poverty.  It is the obvious escape from poverty, and government studies have proved it.  Low income single mothers are holding the fragile nation's future in their arms.  Education can promote low income single mothers to break the poverty cycle and carry our nation's future in the arms of success instead of inside the cycle of poverty.