The Single Parent and Poverty
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If current trends continue, especially in metropolitan areas like New York, Aless than half of all children born today will live continuously with their father and mother throughout childhood@ (Whitehead 11). Statistics now reveal that there are more than 11.5 million single-parent families in the U.S. According to the U.S., census bureau, about one-third of these families are poor. Poverty does not come merely from a single parent heading a family, but that the majority of these families are headed by women, who have few job skills, and little time to even work, in order to care for their children. Child support received nationwide in recent years totaled more than $28 billion. And there are few signs of this sort of economic cost of single-parent families, the majority black, of being reduced. Why is family structure a major cause of poverty? One answer is the failing family structure of the urban ghettos: AChanges in the family structure resulting in a decline of husband-wife families@ (Wilson 87). The problems are more than psychological, in determining the social structure of children and their single-parent homes. The problems are economic. It means tax payer support to maintain a reasonable life-style, even if it is below or near the poverty line. The economic problems are becoming so severe, that they far outweigh the consequences of growing up alone in a family with a single parent and, (hopefully) a single wage-earner. It is not merely support for fo
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Where does this economic shadow fall and continue to be so strong a problem for blacks in America. Race does matter. Even though the number of one-parent white families is not that far below the ratio for black single-parent families, nevertheless, it is the Blacks who are seen as the Ausers@ and Aabusers@ of the welfare system. It is still a biased opinion. It is still a feeling of inferiority for black people to insist (although there are no real statistics to prove it) that it is the black Mother who is taking more advantage of the welfare system, costing taxpayers billions of dollars by being unable or unwilling to work, and continuing to have out-of-wedlock babies, with no male wage-earner to support her growing family.
There is one interesting statistic that comes to grips with the economic costs of maintaining a single-parent family through state or federal government financial aid: AIn 1940, 26 percent of black households contained extended families- meaning they included other relatives besides parents and their biological children. By 1980, only 17 percent of the families were extended@ (Hopfensberger 3). In other words, several generations ago there were other family members available to help out. Today,
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1500
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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