Single Moms Are Doing Everything Right And Still Can’t Afford Food, Rent, Or Childcare

97% are struggling with housing. 85% are facing food insecurity. A new survey proves single moms aren’t the problem — America’s crumbling safety net is.

One year ago, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. Since then, millions of Americans have lost or are on the verge of losing access to critical safety net programs, including SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. Single mothers are absorbing the blow in real time, often without access to federally funded nutrition programs, affordable housing, or preventative healthcare.

Several policy ideas included in Project 2025 could deepen these hardships, including:

• Removing the “head of household” filing status from the tax code, which could raise taxes for many single-mother households
• Eliminating Head Start, which for decades has provided affordable, high-quality early childcare for lower-income families in all 50 states
• Reducing Medicaid funding and access through block grants or work requirements
• Dismantling civil rights protections for women and eliminating DEI funding

Single parents are often treated as a niche concern, but the numbers say otherwise: in 2023, there were 7.3 million single mothers in America, and nearly 16 million children under 18 were living with a single mother, according to the Center for American Progress (CAP).

Single mothers represent a powerful coalition, and their struggles reflect the broader affordability crisis that has escalated under the Trump administration. These hardships have long been framed as personal or regional issues. But when most single mothers can’t afford basic necessities, that framing collapses.

“When you grow up in poverty, there is so much that can go wrong, and it seems like we just have no control. You never allow yourself to dream for more or want better,” said Stasia Saunders, a single mom and former participant in the Minneapolis branch of The Jeremiah Program(JP).

JP, a nonprofit that has worked with single mothers pursuing economic mobility for nearly 30 years, partnered with the Urban Institute on a new national report. Released June 9, Elevating Their Voices: What Single Mothers Say They Need to Survive surveyed nearly 1,800 single mothers across 43 states. The findings:

• 97% reported housing hardship in the past year
• 85% experienced food insecurity — including 53% who skipped meals or went without food
• 82% of those paying for childcare couldn’t reliably afford it
• 72% had difficulty paying medical bills
• 64% had to quit, turn down, or change work because of childcare barriers

Elaine Waxman, senior researcher at the Urban Institute and lead author of the JP report, first encountered these issues while researching low-wage retail jobs; many of her interview subjects were single moms. Elaine’s personal experience as a single mother also shapes her approach to the work, which has become all the more critical in recent years as the federal government restricts data collection.

Elaine’s team built a confidential online survey to encourage honesty from participants. One single mom captured why economic stability matters so much: “It enables me to show the best version of myself to my kids.”

According to Chastity Lord, President and CEO of JP, the report doesn’t just confirm what JP has seen for decades; it puts that evidence in front of policymakers who have the power to act on it.

Stasia had her baby at 20. Convinced she’d need to drop out of school and take two jobs to afford housing, she was talked out of it by her advisor, who connected her with a JP resident.

Beyond offering a safe place to live, JP partners with food banks like Second Harvest and local consignment shops to provide single moms with interview-ready clothing, alongside career workshops, life skills classes, and emergency food gift cards.

“It wasn’t an easy program to get into or maintain, but it was worth it. Empowerment classes really helped me recognize family patterns I was repeating that I didn’t even realize. It was really hard to admit, but very necessary,” Stasia said.

Stasia credits the program with helping her break generational parenting patterns. After yelling at her daughter one night out of exhaustion, she recognized old habits resurfacing: I’m using techniques that don’t work, and I don’t even like them…but I don’t know any other way. An article on parenting stuck with her: it asked whether you want to be a tool that builds or a weapon that destroys. Through JP, Stasia changed her approach, and it opened up communication with her daughter.

“When you don’t have a partner, it’s hard. There’s nobody to say, ‘Go take a nap, I’ll watch the baby.’ It’s you all the time,” Stasia said.

Childcare affordability isn’t unique to single parents, but it hits them hardest. In 2015, a middle-income, two-child family could expect to spend about $12,980 annually per child on childcare.

Per 2022 CAP data, 75% of single mothers work, most full-time, making childcare a necessity, not a luxury. Yet single moms earn a median of $40,000 a year, $17,000 less than single dads. The gap widens along racial lines: Black single moms earn a median of $38,000; Hispanic single moms, $34,000.

Women overall perform 62% of the nation’s unpaid care work — over 280 hours a year each, worth more than $682 billion nationally, or roughly $4,800 per woman. Meanwhile, the paid caregiving workforce is itself underpaid: early educators earn a median wage of $13.07 an hour, below a living wage for a single adult in every state.

Elaine’s research outlines an evidence-based policy agenda across several areas:

• Housing: Programs like Jobs Plus pair job placement with public housing residents; JP itself provides subsidized rent throughout a mother’s time in the program.
• Disability: Reducing churn in Medicaid, SSI, and school-based supports, and expanding Child Care Resource & Referral agencies.
• Job quality: Programs like the Women’s Bean Project offer employment to women facing significant barriers to work.
• Mental health: Wraparound, peer-led recovery support — like Massachusetts’ Institute for Health & Recovery — for parenting women with substance-use histories.
• Reentry: Transition resources for mothers leaving incarceration, including prenatal care, counseling, and bonding support, as outlined in the Justice for Incarcerated Moms Act.
• Immigration: More funding for community organizations, since fear of deportation keeps many immigrant families from using safety-net programs at all.
• Student parents: Fully funding federal child care subsidies and expanding on-campus childcare through the CCAMPIS program.
• Financial stability: Employer-backed emergency assistance funds and mentorship programs like Why We Lift, which help mothers build savings and reduce debt.

Chastity Lord, who was raised by a single mother, has led JP since 2021 with a three-pronged approach: mother, child, and community. “When I was a kid, my mom would’ve been part of JP,” Chastity said.

Stasia’s experience illustrates the traps built into the system. When she applied for assistance to join JP, she learned that being in school disqualified her from cash aid. “I don’t want to feel like I’m asking permission to get groceries or healthcare,” she said. “You just get stuck; there’s really no getting ahead.”

She stayed in school anyway and, after graduating, took a job paying $15 an hour — not enough to cover rent, childcare, and other costs, and just over the income threshold that would have kept her eligible for assistance.

“It is not possible to talk about food insecurity or federal nutrition programs and social determinants of health without talking about those most impacted by these problems,” said Elaine, calling the Urban Institute’s decision to fund JP’s survey “courageous” given how stigmatized the topic remains.

“Do I buy food for my baby or have a home? Maybe I go without insurance, maybe I go without clothes or diapers,” Stasia said.

“Many of these issues would be solved if we thought of childcare in this country as a lifecycle issue,” Elaine said. “We have to be more intentional about childcare as a communal investment.”

Public support tends to favor “helping kids” over adult-focused welfare programs, which draw more scrutiny over deservingness. But as Stasia put it: “For our children to be safe, parents have to be safe.”

Chastity argues the term “childcare” itself needs reframing. Childcare currently covers only ages 0 to 5, when the real need extends much further. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 78% of mothers with a youngest child aged 6–17 were in the labor force in 2024, compared to 68% of mothers with children under 6. The workload doesn’t end when kids start school; it just changes.

“Coming home after a full day of work, it’s amazing that you have anything left to really engage with your child or build future opportunities,” Elaine said.

“What if this were your son, your daughter, someone close to you facing these circumstances? Don’t forget to see the humanity in people,” Stasia said.

Beyond documenting hardship, researchers like Elaine and Chastity are now also tasked with building a counter-narrative to the deeply ingrained American belief in pure self-reliance.

JP plans to repeat the survey and scale it dramatically: from roughly 1,800 respondents in 2026 to 10,000 in 2028 and 30,000 by 2030, timed to the U.S. Census. The stakes are high: census results directly shape both political representation and more than $2 trillion a year in federal funding, yet only 67% of the population currently participates. Underfunded preparation could repeat 2020’s undercounts, particularly among rural, tribal, Black, and Hispanic communities and children.

“A rising tide will lift all boats,” Chastity said. This is not merely a slogan, but a design principle. Centering single mothers in policy decisions will inherently widen the conversation to economic mobility and human rights more broadly.

Chastity doesn’t think everyone has to do the same thing, but believes everyone has to do something: participate in the census, vote, and support the people around you. “We can’t just celebrate [successful community members]; we need to be them. They were scared, they were overwhelmed, they were stressed out,” she said. “Be in conversation with your greatness.”

Participate in the U.S. Census here.