Securing a safe, decent place to raise her child is one of a mother's primary concerns.

Welfare, Low-wage Work Offer Single Mothers Few Alternative

The Habitat World editors have designated this "Taking Measure" section as a place to share certain resources we feel might shed further light on poverty and the challenges families face to make ends meet on a limited income. These resources can and do appear here in the form of Web site reviews, revealing studies about poverty and substandard housing, and in book reviews.

	"Ask any politician to live off my budget. Live off my minimum-wage job and just a little bit of food stamps--how can he do it? I bet he couldn't. I'd like him to try it for one month. Come home from work, cook dinner, wash clothes, do everything, everything, get up and go to work the next day, and then find you don't have enough money to pay for everything you need." --Working mother, from Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work, by Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein In order to rent a two-bedroom home at Fair Market Rent, a U.S. worker would have to earn $14.66 an hour, nearly three times the federal minimum wage ($5.15 per hour.) --National Low Income Housing Coalition In 2001, 32.9 million people lived below poverty thresholds, 1.3 million more than in 2000. --U. S. Census Bureau

During our research, we came upon Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. This book is not a "recreational" read; its pages are filled with tables and statistics, and the reader must keep in mind that the figures have grown outdated in the years since the authors' original research. However, it does provide useful background for understanding the significance of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, the impact of benefit time limits and the tough choices single mothers still make today. Following is our own take on what we read.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, authors Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein interviewed 379 single mothers in Boston; Charleston, S.C.; Chicago; and San Antonio. Some relied primarily on welfare benefits to make ends meet, while others worked low-wage jobs; some lived in public housing, while others used subsidies to live in privately owned housing. None had an easy time with any situation. Edin and Lein's portrayal of the public's perception of poverty still rings true--and the challenges single mothers face remain firm.

The stereotypes are numerous: Welfare mothers waste money by spending frivolously; welfare mothers are lazy and just don't want to work; hard work alone is enough to improve one's lot in life.

There are as many myths and legends surrounding welfare as there are welfare stories themselves. Through hard data and revealing truths regarding life on welfare or low-wage work, Making Ends Meet challenges such stereotypes and offers thought-provoking observations.

The lives of the mothers in this book indicate a reality far removed from the myths. Far from being a matter of cash income only, "making ends meet" involves concerns about health care, child care, parenting and dignity.

The majority of mothers Edin and Lein encountered sincerely wanted to work and to provide a decent standard of living for their children. However, with little or no job training--and often just as little education--these mothers found few choices and fewer opportunities.

"Why have so many Americans come to see welfare as 'dependency' and work as 'self-sufficiency'?" the authors ask. According to Edin and Lein, the answer lies partially in the fact that most discussions of single parents occur without accounting for what welfare provides--or fails to provide--and what it actually takes to support a family.

The truth is that neither welfare nor low-wage work is sufficient, and both forced the single mothers in Making Ends Meet to look elsewhere for supplemental income, such as "off-the-books" contributions from family members or friends. Welfare-reliant mothers felt they could not disclose additional income because it would mean a reduction in their already-meager benefits. In other words, their food stamps would be tapered, often right before--or right after--their housing subsidy.

Wage-reliant mothers fared even worse, spreading themselves thin working at near-minimum-wage jobs with no health benefits, no job-sponsored support for child care, often no guarantee for sufficient hours of work and little opportunity to improve their lot through education or job training.

One revelation we found compelling was the importance of a support network. Some of the working mothers, for instance, were fortunate enough to have family members or friends watch their children at no charge. Still, those arrangements didn't always work out, potentially driving mothers back to the welfare rolls where at least they could ensure the care of their children.

Ultimately, it seems, the problem lies in the state of the American labor market, where unskilled or semi-skilled workers simply cannot and do not earn enough to provide for their families. Merely finding a job doesn't mean self-sufficiency. Low-wage jobs by themselves fall short of covering necessary living expenses.

Unfortunately, as Edin and Lein discovered, so does the welfare alternative.

Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work, by Katherine Edin and Laura Lein. Published by Russell Sage Foundation, March 1997. ISBN: 087154234X.

--Shawn Reeves and Rebekah Graydon