Member Articles

Lately, each day’s headlines seem to bring yet another piece of dire financial news. Layoffs, bank failures, foreclosures, collapsing home values, increasing cost of living, stagnant wages -- the economic news is enough to make anybody worry about the future.

 

For the single mother, however, a troubled economy can be particularly worrisome, as many single mothers are the sole support of their children, receiving little or no child support from the fathers of their children. An uncertain economy can easily disrupt a precarious fiscal balance. However, there are strategies that a single mother can employ to protect herself and her family during difficult economic times.

 

 

1.) Consider multiple streams of income. The two-parent home is often a dual income home, but for the single mother, the old adage often holds true -- all the financial eggs are in one basket. While this may have been just fine in bygone eras, when it was common to work for a single employer for decades or even for an entire career, that is not the safest strategy today. According to an article published on January 29, 2009, in Business Week, “Job losses averaged more than 500,000 per month during the fourth quarter, and the return to a very high level of initial unemployment claims -- 555,000 per week through Jan 24 -- suggest another drop of that size.”

 

 

The Business Week article also points out that while job losses in manufacturing and construction are typical of economic downturns, what we are currently experiencing economically is outside of the usual sort of recession. “Private-sector service payrolls,” according to the article, “fell at a pace greater than at any time during the severe recessions in 1973-75 and 1981-82.” The trends toward higher rates of unemployment and under-employment don’t look like they are going to be turning around any time soon.

 

 

In these uncertain fiscal times, multiple streams of income just make sense, especially for a single mother for whom a cut in the hours worked per week or a lay-off could mean that her children could go without or could end up in a struggle to keep the family home out of foreclosure.

 

Naturally, taking on another job can be difficult for the mother already relying on a childcare provider. However, there are numerous opportunities for additional streams of income that don’t require significantly increasing time already spent away from the children.