Laurie Maldonado
Laurie Maldonado
A report that smashes stereotypes about single mothers in the United States "living off the dole" drew national media attention to the work of Laurie Maldonado, a doctoral student in social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Maldonado collaborated with Tim Casey of Legal Momentum on the report, Worst Off: Single-Parent Families in the United States," which shows that America's single-parent families have the highest poverty rate when compared to their peers in countries around the world. The report compares single parents in 17 high-income countries in terms of employment, wage rates, health care coverage and government support for things like entitlements to paid parental leave.
 
Single mothers, said Maldonado, have been "demonized in the media," portrayed as unmotivated and living off the government. To the contrary, U.S. single parents, compared to those in other countries, have above-average employment rates [between 73-84 percent] but work in low-wage jobs -- a recipe for poverty.
 
"This idea of single parents working really hard, long hours and in low-wage jobs is a really big thing and a really loud message," said Maldonado, who lives in New York and is completing her Ph.D. at the satellite institute, the Luxembourg Income Study Center at the Graduate Center City University of New York.
 
Single-parent families also have low levels of health care coverage in the United States, which is also the only country that doesn't provide paid leave for single parents, compared to a country like Sweden, which offers four to six weeks annually.
 
Maldonado became interested in the struggles of single parents while earning her Master of Social Welfare at UCLA in 2002. She then worked as a social welfare practitioner in New York at non-profits in Harlem and the Bronx.
 
"All I was working with was single parents and I was realizing ‘Oh my gosh, this is insane,’" Maldonado said. "They have to work long hours to get aid and it’s such a hard life to balance."
 
"We should really be outraged that so many families are living in poverty," she said. "I think it’s a matter of getting the word out and it’s a matter of advocacy. I think we really can change the political world on this issue."
 
This story is adapted from a longer version originally published by the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Read the full "Worst Off" report here, and sample some of the media coverage, including a Sojourner Truth Radio interview and stories in the Huffington Post and About.com.