Single moms need a better social safety net, not moralizing about marriage

Single-mother families make up one in five American families with children under 18. I grew up in one of them.

Solo parenting is no easy feat. Even though my Philadelphia childhood was filled with happy memories, we went through hardship, too. I remember how stressed my mom would get about making ends meet. In high school, while I spent hours on homework, she was in court fighting not to lose our house.

Too many single moms like mine face unnecessary economic insecurity that jeopardizes the wellbeing of their families. While some argue marriage is the best solution, what really uplifts single moms and their families are policies that support working women and foster a strong social safety net.

Many single parents — more than four-in-five of whom are single moms — serve as both their family’s sole breadwinner and caregiver. The rise in dual-income families, where both parents work, puts single-parent families at an income disadvantage and at higher risk of economic insecurity.

My new analysis for the Center for American Progress found that single moms work at higher rates than married moms. Despite that, 28 percent of single moms fall below the federal poverty line. Poverty rates are even worse for Black single moms, who make up almost 30 percent of all single moms in the country. And for the almost 16 million children in single-mom families, the risk of living in poverty can have deeply adverse effects.

This alarming trend has generated much recent discussion about the advantages of marriage and so-called “traditional family values.” Proponents of marriage as a solution argue that because dual-earner households tend to have higher incomes than single-parent families, an economic and social imperative exists to encourage marriage.

The far-right Project 2025 goes even further, claiming that if the “crisis of marriage and the family,” continues, our nation is headed toward “social implosion.” Project 2025 proposes repealing policies that are “subsidizing single-motherhood,” and replacing them with policies that encourage the formation of “married, nuclear families.” These latter are narrowly defined and explicitly exclude queer relationships.

In nearly half of all single-mother families — including my own — women were once married but then divorced, separated or widowed. The introduction of no-fault divorce laws 50 years ago made divorce more attainable, and states saw decreased rates of domestic violence, female suicide and spousal homicide. Prominent opponents of no-fault divorce ignore the reality that many married couples want a divorce or separation. This would incentivize staying in marriages that harm the wellbeing of women and their children — including those experiencing domestic violence and abuse.

Prioritizing marriage as a solution to economic insecurity places responsibility on women to get married and stay married. If my mom had stayed in her abusive marriage, it would only have continued to harm, not help, her, me and my brother.

Although dual-earner families tend to have better financial resources on average compared to single-earner families, marriage doesn’t always guarantee or create better economic security. Using government intervention to encourage marriage has been attempted for decades and consistently fails. The American family structure has always and will always evolve as society evolves. Rates of single motherhood grew as women’s labor force participation increased, cultural norms and laws about marriage and family changed and the economic disparities that can influence marriage and childbearing were revealed.

Single moms need policy solutions that support their autonomy, not policies that return to an era when women had far less control over their own lives. To combat high poverty rates among single moms, Congress should permanently expand the child tax credit, reform Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and raise the minimum wage.

To bolster single moms’ ability to fully and equitably participate in the economy and care for their families, lawmakers should advance pay equity for women, pass universal paid family and medical leave and invest in affordable and accessible child care.

My mom is the hardest-working and most resilient person I know — and that’s true of single moms across the country who continue to raise children and contribute to our economy even with the many challenges they face. Single motherhood doesn’t have to mean inherently worse outcomes for those moms and their children. I earned an excellent education and work in public policy because I was raised by a single mom, not in spite of it.

Single moms are vital members of our communities. Instead of reinforcing the misogynistic myth that stability is only attainable by attaching oneself to a man, it’s time we enacted policies that support single mothers in their own right.

Isabela Salas-Betsch is a former research associate with the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, where she focused on topics related to women’s economic security.