Recently, State Auditor Shad White released a report about the cost of fatherlessness to taxpayers. Certainly, fathers should take responsibility for their children.
But we should focus on moms who do take responsibility for their children. Helping moms earn enough to support their children benefits everyone, including Mississippi taxpayers.
Half of Mississippi’s children live with single moms – moms who work multiple jobs to make ends meet and navigate the burdensome red tape to obtain assistance with child care.
Men’s jobs pay more than women’s jobs; a mom must work 2 to 3 jobs to earn what a man makes, and many single moms do. Single moms need affordable child care, but the state’s child care assistance application process is riddled with red tape. In fact, Mississippi only serves about 25% of eligible children. Despite these hardships, moms persevere for their children.
Auditor White says single moms make a “herculean” effort to care for their children. Mississippi should help moms be successful, not make them go through herculean efforts to provide for their children.
Single moms need affordable child care so they can work, and they need help navigating the obfuscated workforce system so they can get higher-paying jobs. We do both at Moore Community House’s Women in Construction job training program, where we help moms with child care and training for construction jobs where women are only 2% of employees but where wages begin at 2.5 times the minimum wage. This is a successful model.
These are the investments Mississippi taxpayers should make.