Welfare reform failing poor single mothers, By Melinda Burns, October 28, 2010, Miller-McCune: “The women at the bottom in America, single mothers on public assistance, are sometimes called ‘drawer people,’ the subjects of case files that stay in the welfare manager’s drawer, year after year. They are mothers who quit work or can’t work because they are ill or disabled, or illiterate, or victims of abuse, or the sole caregivers for an elderly parent or chronically sick child. These so-called hard-to-serve single mothers may include women who fail to apply for the 70 jobs in one month required to qualify for a federal cash grant. They may want to go to school full time, which is against welfare rules in some states. They may be approaching the five-year lifetime limit for cash assistance that most states impose. Or they may simply not own a car…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty