by Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst, 
National Women's Law Center

In today's NY Times Bob Herbert highlights the increasing economic anxiety American families are facing. New analysis shows that economic security, the knowledge that you will be able to put a roof over your children's heads and food on the table, has been growing progressively scarcer for Americans for the last 25 years. Rising medical costs and unemployment mean that in 2009 a record number of Americans, more than 20 in 100, were projected to lose at least quarter of their income without any financial safety net to fall back on.

America, welcome to the insecurity of being a single mother.

While this level of economic insecurity is a sharp increase for most Americans, it's what single mothers have been living with for years. Between 2000 and 2007, about 19 in 100 single mothers lost a quarter or more of their income each year.

This graph is from the Economic Security Index.

(The researchers did not estimate what the level of economic insecurity among single moms would be in 2009. Given the high rate of unemployment among single moms in the recession and expected surge in poverty, the percentage of single moms losing more than 25 percent of their income could be well above 20 percent in 2009).

More Americans are now living with the anxieties single mothers struggled with before the recession.  We hope that builds support for policies to improve economic security—for all of us.

• Tags:
• Employment
• Poverty & Income Support
• Katherine Gallagher Robbins

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