Low‐Wage Single‐Mother Families in This Jobless Recovery: Can Improved Social Policies Help?

Low‐wage single‐mother families face greater relative disadvantage in this jobless recovery than do other earning and marital groups. Stressful uncertainties are intensified for them not only by a lack of financial reserves related to low pay and having only one family earner but by the characteristics of their labor market, a growing disparity in income distribution nationally that increases their relative disadvantage, intensified job competition from more skilled unemployed workers. Incomplete education and fewer and less adequate training programs than are available for more educated workers make it more difficult to improve or diversify skills. Given the limitations of wage‐related social policies, there is a need for expanded education and training programs to increase skills and raise the earnings potential to a more family‐sustaining level.