True facts: single moms

Greg Kaufmann, Nation - Here’s the new American reality: about half of all kids will spend at least part of their childhood in a family headed by a single mother, and the typical single mother is white, has one kid, is separated or divorced, works, and probably earns less than $25,000 a year.

When I was a kid being raised by a white single mom, President Reagan basically promised me we that we were different, special even. My mom put herself through school and worked. The typical single mom, according to the President, was a “welfare queen” taking “government handouts” so she could drive her “Cadillac” and raise her “strapping young bucks” on “T-bone steaks.” He didn’t have to say she was black, lazy, and never married—everyone knew it. This image persisted through welfare reform in 1996 when basic cash assistance was gutted and it still grips the American psyche today...

About 40 percent of single mothers are white, one-third black, and one-quarter Hispanic. And there are other things Reagan never told me—like only one-sixth haven’t completed high school, 25 percent have a college degree, 55 percent are divorced, separated or widowed, and at any one time 66 percent of single mothers are working outside the home—a single mother employment rate above the average of other high-income countries.