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Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

Is the national poverty rate among two parent households 5.4%?

Sue Bin Park, Oklahoma Watch
no

According to the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the national poverty rate of two parent households in 2021 was 9.5%. This is less than the recorded poverty rate among single parent households, 31.7%, and the overall poverty rate of all family types, 16%.

Child Trends, a nonprofit organization focused on child welfare research, explains that greater rates of poverty in single parent households are not solely due to depending on a single earner’s income. A single parent may face additional obstacles to employment, such as inflexible work policies, that make balancing childcare and household demands without a second parent more difficult. Many must rely on unaffordable childcare in order to keep their jobs, amplifying the challenges of surviving on a single earner’s income.

Governor Stitt’s office did not respond to our inquiry on the source of their statistics at the time of publication.

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