Last Wednesday, I was invited to be on a panel at the 92nd Winter Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors. The theme was “Empowering Cities: Strategies for Alleviating Poverty,” and the title of my talk was “Using Data to Change the Narrative on Poverty.”
I was glad to have the chance to present to this group of leaders. It was my opportunity to talk about three false narratives about single, low-income mothers that I want policymakers to stop perpetuating.
- Single mothers have “lots” of children.
False. 75% of single mothers have 1 or 2 children, which is not “lots.” (42% of single mothers have one child; 33% have two children. See Table 1).
Table 1. Single Mothers’ Family Size
- If single, low-income mothers worked more, they would have more money to care for their children.
False. Single, low-income mothers work 40 hours a week, but they have low-wage jobs. The problem is not that they aren’t hard-working. These mothers need jobs that pay a livable wage (see Table 2).
Table 2. Top Occupations for Single, Low-Income Mothers
- Most single, low-income mothers are Black and Hispanic.
False. The majority of single, low-income mothers are white. It is misleading to combine Black and Hispanic women for this group. This is another example of what happens when we fail to disaggregate data and lump groups together in a way that supports a common (false) narrative. And that’s what it is: a narrative. When I share the data for single, low-income mothers, some are shocked that I included data for white, single, low-income mothers. I wonder why? What would make people think that only black and Hispanic women are single, low-income mothers? Perhaps because that’s the story that we often hear—a story grounded in racial bias, not actual data.
Table 3. Single, Low-Income Mothers by Race/Ethnicity
CITY POOR; COUNTRY POOR
I asked the group to consider the difference between urban and rural poverty. Poverty isn’t a homogeneous experience; location matters. For example, the image of rural poverty is Appalachia. The image of urban poverty is blighted neighborhoods. Both are misleading. White women were the only group with similar percentages of single, low-income mothers in urban and rural poverty. Table 4 provides the demographics for urban and rural poverty.
Table 4. Single, Low-Income Mothers by Rural Status
NAVIGATING THE POVERTY LINE
Since the mayors were there to discuss “strategies for alleviating poverty,” I pressed them to define what “alleviating poverty” means.
It cannot mean moving people above the poverty line because one penny can move a mother above the poverty line but not allow her to move her family out of poverty.
Does it mean we want fewer people living in under-resourced communities? What would it take to provide the resources—housing, education, childcare, transportation—that could help move the needle for single, low-income moms?
Does it mean we set a benchmark for the number of people we are “okay” with being in poverty? Right now, that number hovers around 11.5 percent. My colleague, Gary Hoover, recently posted on social media,
“We wouldn’t allow 15% failure (poverty) with any other system EXCEPT our economic system to persist. …Time for a recall, or at a minimum, a redesign of the system.”
To redesign any system, you must work with factual information and accurate data. Otherwise, you risk perpetuating false narratives and creating solutions based on incomplete, faulty data.
I encourage policymakers—and all of us—to stop believing and perpetuating false narratives about single, low-income mothers. These women have enough to deal with already.
