128. Single Moms & Poverty: The Real Reason Women Are Falling Behind Financially

If you’ve ever felt like no matter how hard you work, it’s still not enough — especially while juggling bills, caregiving, and constant financial stress — this episode is a powerful and eye-opening conversation about why that feeling exists and what’s really behind it.

Violeta dives deep into the reality of the feminization of poverty, breaking down how systemic barriers — not personal failures — disproportionately impact women, especially Latinas. 

This is both a validation and a call to awareness: your financial situation does not exist in a vacuum — and understanding the system is a key step toward navigating it.

We cover:
• What the “feminization of poverty” actually means and why it matters
• The long-term impact of caregiving responsibilities on income and career growth
• How lack of access to affordable childcare, healthcare, and education creates financial traps
• How systemic policies and political decisions directly affect women’s financial stability
• Practical ways women can protect themselves financially in an unpredictable system
• Why money is inherently political — and why staying informed matters

This episode is a reminder that financial struggle is often structural, not personal. And while the system may not be built in your favor, awareness, strategy, and community can help you navigate it with more clarity and intention.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Economic Status of Single Mothers by Center for American Progress 
• The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap by Pew Research Center 
• Pew Research
• Teen birth rates hit another historical low in 2025, CDC says
• Fox News analyst blames low birth rate on teens not having enough kids

If this episode resonated with you, share it with another woman who needs to hear this — and join the conversation.

Transcript

Violeta 0:00

It may feel like it's still not enough because you're caring, taking care of your family, paying your bills, and all along you are dealing with that financial anxiety all at the same time. And I am here to tell you that it's not because you're bad with money, it's not a personal failure. You are part of a system that has a pattern of continuously keeping women down. We need to talk about something that is uncomfortable, and it is something because you hear about this in these red pill podcasts about how single moms contribute to this and that, and they are basing it off the statistic that 28% of single mothers live in poverty, which is about five to six times higher than two parent households, and this statistic is climbing. I am talking about the feminization of poverty because once again, women, single moms specifically, are taking the fall for the failure of men and of a broken system. We're going to talk about what feminization of poverty is, why it's happening, how it affects Latinas, and some of the things that we can do to protect and try to fight against the feminization of poverty. First, if you are a single mom, it can feel like no matter what you do, how hard you work, it may feel like it's still not enough because you're carrying, taking care of your family, paying your bills, and all along you are dealing with that financial anxiety all at the same time. And I am here to tell you that it's not because you're bad with money, it's not a personal failure. You are part of a system that has a pattern of continuously keeping women down, and there's a term for it. It's called the feminization of poverty. The feminization of poverty refers to a growing trend that women represent a higher portion of poor than men, which of course is often linked to the rise of single parent households, specifically single mothers. And so, you know, all these red pill podcast bros are just eating this up because they use it for their own agenda of keeping women down and so on, and they don't scratch below the surface and ask the big question of why is this happening? So let's talk about it. Let's talk about why single moms are more likely to live in poverty than in two parent households. Number one, just being a woman already puts you at a disadvantage because according to Pew Research Center, there is a gender wage gap. And I'm going to have all the resources that I talk about linked down in the description or in the show notes so that way you could check it out for yourself. But according to Pew Research Center, and this just means that women in general earn less than men, but Latinas earn even significantly less. We often earn about 55 to 65 percent of what a man does, and specifically white cis males. So again, we are already starting behind. Number two is becoming single moms. Whether you start off as a young single mom, or maybe you become a single mom later in life, like through divorce, this already puts you at a higher risk of being in poverty. And in the Latino community, of course, many have a more conservative view of first of all, sex itself. So there's little sex education, it's kind of like avoided. I know, like for me, it was just like, you know, just don't get pregnant, avoid sex, and blah blah blah. And you know, anything that came about of like birth control or anything like that, it was just like prevented. They're like, what do you need that for? I mean, you shouldn't be having sex, anyways. So there's already a little sex education, there's already, you know, negative mindset or a more, I would say, conservative mindset against birth control and abortions. So that already puts Latinas at a higher risk of becoming young single moms. So this means that Latinas who become single moms at a young age, they already have that added barrier, that added obstacle of dealing with a pregnancy or being a single mom and then trying to go to college, or they join the workforce earlier, or they have to join the workforce at a lower wage salary because, of course, they're young, so they don't have the experience, they don't have the education to go for a higher salary job. And as a result, then they fall in this hard-to-overcome cycle of providing for your child, taking care of them, which makes it difficult again to finish school that will help you get a better job, or just even being able to meet the requirements for a promotion because you're busy maybe taking time off to go pick up your kid from daycare because you know they had a cold or whatever. And so now you lose time. On the other side, if you become a single mom later on through, let's say, divorce, again, the Latino community has some conservative views on like the traditional relationship in marriage. This is more kind of like with the immigrant community, typically like second generation, first generation. You know, we're kind of like moving a little bit different, but still a lot of Latinas still have some conservative views on, you know, the man being the primary breadwinner. Sometimes maybe they're just stay-at-home moms, or even they're the ones that are going to school but are not actively in the workforce or whatever it may be. And so, yes, you're married, but maybe a little bit a few years down the road, you find yourself that you know you get divorced, or even if it's not even through divorce, it is maybe, you know, knock on wood, they pass for some reason, or they get hurt on the job, they become disabled, and so now you have to pick up that slack, and then now you have to be the one to join the workforce because now you're divorced, and so now you have to take care of yourself to pay your bills, but also a lot of the child rearing falls on the women. You know, women usually end up with the custody of the child, so then you are the primary caregiver, which of course puts women at again a high risk of poverty after that divorce because, yeah, you know, the ex-husband or even you know the baby daddy, if you never got married or whatever, yes, they pay child support, but again, all the caregiving falls on the mother on top of joining the workforce late. So there is a lot of obstacles right there that make it harder. So, again, there is a lot of trust on the man, which of course, I mean, you're in love, you're married and stuff, so you depend on your spouse, on your husband to be the main provider, if not the sole provider. But then when something like divorce happens, then of course that puts you at a higher risk of poverty because you spent that time not being in the workforce, so now you have a gap in employment, or maybe you didn't finish school, and so now you have to struggle to finish college while taking care of your kids and also working now. So, you know, all of these combined to contribute to the high poverty in single mom households. Now, let's talk about the system itself, because this system is designed to keep women down. Now, yes, we have had some social safety nets, and yes, women were especially Latinas, we're getting more educated and so on, but still, with all of that and with the safety nets, there's still a trend of rising poverty with single mom households. And again, we have all these safety nets that do help. For example, we have SNAP benefits, which is what was known as food stamps, you have housing assistance like section eight housing and taxes. You also have some tax credits like the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, which I do talk about in my tax episode that I will link down below so you could check out how to reduce your tax liability. But all of these do not address the root cause, it provides some aid to, of course, keep them afloat, but it's not addressing the traps or the obstacles that keep single moms in that struggle and it puts them in poverty. So let's talk about how the system keeps single moms poor. First of all, with the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the constant battle of the system, the government, and just men in general trying to take choice away from women of becoming a single mom in the first place. They're fighting and trying to keep women from getting birth control, all of that. That in itself contributes to the overall problem where the system creates this risk for women to fall into poverty because the choice is completely taken away from them already. And I know it can get a little bit touchy because, again, the Latino community is a little bit more conservative leaning as far as that. But again, we're talking about the system. The other thing is just the constant attack of the little social nets that we have from reducing the funding for like SNAP benefits, housing unit. I know, remember, I think it was last year that they were trying to pause the SNAP benefits and housing assistance because of this and that. So that put a lot of families at risk of getting evicted, putting them behind on their bills. There's a constant, always like battle against these safety nets because why should they have free money? Why should they get these benefits? They should pull themselves up by the bootstrap and that kind of mentality that a lot of this country tends to have. So the little safety nets that we do have, they constantly are getting attacked. There's constantly on the chopping table of cutting back funding and all that. So, on top of that, they also increase the restrictions, the eligibility, you know, like they just make it harder for you to become eligible for these benefits, for these programs. And so, for example, you can let's say you do get a promotion at your job, and they're like, hey, you know, I'm going to give you like a 50 cent raise. Well, that 50 cent raise can push you above the eligibility line for your SNAP benefits or for your housing. And so now you yes, you get 50 cents extra per hour, but you just lost your housing assistance and you just lost your SNAP benefits. So then now you have to figure out if you do take this promotion or this raise, now you have to be like, Well, should I get another job to make up for that? Or you just say, I'm just not gonna take the raise because I don't want to lose my SNAP benefits. So then that keeps them in that poverty. The other thing with the system is just the lack of universal health care. It's an obstacle because birth control is pricey, and especially when you're already struggling, you're already in poverty, getting access to birth control is hard and unattainable. And then if you do become pregnant, then you have the doctor appointment. So prenatal care is hard to come by, and so you just kind of pick and choose which ones you go, or you know, you put yourself in a financial burden basically to go to these doctor appointments, and then giving birth in itself is expensive. Like then you end up with this huge hospital bill that you have to now try to pay off on top of being in poverty and just you may not have been in poverty, but now you have this and now it pushes you into poverty because you now have this huge bill, and so it's also the lack of maternity leave. So now not only do you have this big hospital bill, but now you have to take extra time work if let's say you didn't have a smooth delivery, there's no maternity leave. So now you have reduced hours, you have a reduced paycheck, which can put you behind on your bills if you have to go to a doctor's appointment. Because you know, when you first have a baby, like there's so many doctor appointments that you have to go to. And each one of those, again, there's no maternity leave, you have to either take some time off, and for the most part, these low-wage jobs don't necessarily have a lot of PTO, so you use up all your PTO, then now you just have to take days off where you just don't get paid, right? So then again, reduction in your paycheck, which means that you have less money for your bills, which means that it puts you at risk for poverty, and so there's a whole bunch of negative effects on just that itself as well, from just being pregnant, like going to these medical appointments already look, you know, women get looked down upon when you do have a job that reduces the chances of you getting a promotion or even puts you at risk of being laid off just because you decided to have a kid. It's also the lack of affordable access to education, like you have to put yourself in debt with these predatory loans to get an education that is needed to obtain that higher salary. So, again, just even deciding on top of all this from the system to say, hey, you you want to be, I guess, responsible, you want to be ambitious, you want to take the initiative of going to get an education. But man, education is expensive and there's not a lot of choices out there except student loans. And a lot of people just don't understand student loans and they're pre-predatory, if I say so myself, in my opinion. And so now they put themselves in debt in the hopes that they'll graduate and be able to get a high salary job. But again, you have the obstacle of having a child, they get sick, you miss school, you like, for example, with my class, if I miss six, then it already dropped me a letter grade because I was absent too many times. So, in a whole semester and you have a kid, you know, kids at a young age they get sick left and right. So you can imagine six absences can already add up, or you just miss something that was important for the test, and so you could fail, and so on. Like it's again, it's a freaking snowball effect, all these things. And then on top of that, it is the lack of livable wages, like we are so behind, we're keeping people in the struggle, it's the lack of affordable child care. Again, another way to keep single moms in that struggle because it is pricey, it is so expensive, and it's not even good child care either. So, not only are you putting yourself in poverty trying to just have child care so you can go to work, you're also risking the life of your child because some of these childcare options that are available for single moms, they're kind of at a risk. So, a lot of things, and I mean, I can go on and on on how the system sets up single moms to fall into poverty, and it pisses me off because men really think that just sending you their measly little child support check and having their kid every other weekend or every weekend is enough. It is the men who went and did the deed and then leave the child with the mom and then just do the bare minimum of barely sending a child support check and just saying hi to the kid once a week. And if this doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you, okay? But I'm talking about those men, and then they complain that the mom is misusing the child support or asking for more money because the kid needs shoes or whatever, and they turn around and get on these mics on these podcasts or just talking crap about their baby mamas and just put these obstacles or they go vote for a system that continues to keep single moms struggling, and just all these smear campaigns, voting for politicians that are putting things like bringing up bills like the SAVE Act that is an obstacle for women to go vote, fighting against alimony, fighting against child support in itself. Like there's so much smear campaigns out there on women against women who choose not to have kids or choose not to get married, and then on top of that, smear campaigns and just talking the most crap about single moms, and they really fight tooth and nail to keep women down, and then they have the audacity to put all of the problems because yes, being in poverty increases the risk of increasing crime rates, right? A child that grew up in poverty does have a higher risk of falling into the prison pipeline and keeping them in poverty themselves and all of that, but to place all of the blame on women is just freaking ridiculous. It really pissed me off when I found out about the feminization of poverty. Like they really had the audacity to place all the blame on single moms and calling it the feminization of poverty and letting, of course, men just are okay, they're not blamed, nothing falls on their shoulders on contributing this. It's all women. I mean, like, make it make sense. Like, this pissed me off so much when I found this out. I learned about it in my federal government class and in my sociology class, and I was just like typical, right? Typical, we have the blame on the feminization of poverty. So, yeah, like let me stop that rant right there because I'm getting like pissed off. But like, how do we change this? And I'm not going to lie, but it really is an uphill battle. Like, there is so much that goes against women, the system, everything that keeps coming up. I mean, you just I feel like every time I log on, there's something new that is being pushed to keep women down, or there's another podcast bro talking crap about women, or this and that. It's a lot, it's an uphill battle. So I have a few things that I kind of want to mention, and it's just again, there's a lot of things that we just need to do to be able to combat this. So, number one, and I hate to do this because I just talked about blaming women and how crappy that is and all that, but again, I also have to be realistic with the situation, right? And so the first thing is protecting yourself, protecting ourselves, understanding if you are at risk, if you are of childbearing age or you know you're not on birth control or anything like that, then you are at risk of becoming a single mom. And so, part of that, I'm gonna say a little like side note because in my class the professor did bring it up, and I was kind of a little bit triggered of him just addressing the women in the class, but I understand why he did that, and he he came from a good heart, right? Because he is pissed off of the feminization of poverty. I just wish he would have addressed the males too, who put women in this situation. So again, I understand his what he was trying to do. Again, his heart was in the right place of trying to help women and stuff like that. But he's older, so like he did address mostly the women. And so again, I was triggered. But uh at the end of the day, again, we have to be realistic that we do have to protect our uteruses from these no good. Good guys who would just dip as soon as that stick comes out positive. And again, I'm not shaming. You know, I was out in these streets when I was younger, but like again, we have to be cautious. We have to protect ourselves, especially the young Latinos who may be listening to this podcast. Like, if you are not on birth control, get on some birth control. If again, I do understand that the Latino community is a little bit more conservative, but also you have to protect yourself. I don't know. Find something that works for you with your beliefs that is not going to put you at risk. And I just want to say again, not shamey, but if you are a young single mom, find your community. It is hard. I know it can feel like it's you and your kids against the world with everything going on. But you know, one good thing about social media is that you could find other maybe single moms, and you know, there's resources out there, maybe. Like, you know, I'm not a church person, but I have seen some churches that offer services to like help with affordable child care or things like that. And just, you know, just look around. You'd be surprised what you find. The mom's group are a little bit iffy, but maybe you can find somebody and y'all could work something out. But you know, don't do this on your own. I know we are in a very individualistic society, but I will say, I think being Latinas, we have a more community culture, so it might be hopefully a little easier. But if for some reason your family's kind of iffy, definitely reach out, look, and find your community to help support you. And don't forget, like if you are going to school or whatever, like see if they have resources. Uh, you'd be surprised. Some of these schools or they might have contacts that might help you out so that way you can finish school. If you are married with kids and you do have kind of like that traditional mindset, I know some people, some women that have this mindset and to each their own. Again, I'm not shaming. I just want you to protect yourself just in case, because, like I said, you never know what may happen, and you don't want to try to figure it out while you're stressed out, or maybe if they pass, or whatever you're mourning that, and then trying to figure out everything and scrambling to make ends meet. So definitely have like your own savings. There are ways where you can still have your own investment accounts, even if you don't work, if you're just like going to school, or if you're just a stay-at-home mom, you know, work that out with your spouse and make sure that you do have a safety net for yourself and have a little savings or whatever. But I think I'll make an episode on that in itself, because I don't want to get too deep into the weeds in here, but find ways to reduce your risk because no one make us have right, and the other one I want to say is because we do live in a patriarchy, it loves to pit women against each other, and so don't fall into that trap of becoming a weapon against other women, especially single moms, like be a girls' girl, like that's one thing. And I know when I was younger, I did fall a little bit into that trap of being like the mus, they're lazy, they just need to work harder, blah, blah, blah, because I didn't understand how the system worked and all the struggles and obstacles and barriers that you know the government, the system itself puts on women, and so I had to do a little bit of self-reflection and stop being so male-centered, and it's still something that you have to work towards, right? Because it's so ingrained in you of the patriarchy, right? And so I've gone made a lot of lot of progress, but I'm sure there's still something that probably might come up later that I have to check myself. And so you have to actively check yourself because the system also makes us fight against each other. That's how why you see these MAGA women who are out here pushing the patriarchy agenda. They're over here, you know, supporting the SAVE Act, they're over here supporting women not being in the workforce or against any like maternity stuff, like care or anything like that. So, because they're safe, they're married, and many of these, you know, have a nice, stable husband that provides for them. So who cares if other women suffer or they're these single women, you know, they should have picked better, they should have studied, they should have pulled themselves by the bootstrap. Don't be that girl, be a girl's girl and you know, support women. And lastly, this goes hand in hand, and it's by voting and staying up to date on what's going on. Because with the whole, again, whatever side you fall on with the roe v. Wade, the point is that you know, got comfortable that it wasn't going to get overturned and all that, and then it did. And so then same thing with the Save Act has been held up, which by the way, if you don't know, this Save Act I forgot to mention, is basically just going to make it harder for women to vote because your ID has to match your birth certificate, which of course a lot of women changed their last names, so then that's extra cost, extra process. Again, re-register. It's like it just makes it harder for women to vote. It's a barrier and it's purposely made that way. So that way you're like, you know what? I don't need to vote. That's fine. I'll do it next time. Or darn, I forgot to go get my documentation, so now I can't vote. Like it's stuff like that. It's purposely done. So make sure you are voting, educating yourself, support the fight by donating. If you can't donate, even just amplifying the voices of these programs of these movements, and you know, just it's going to be a long fight, but we have to be involved. And so, just a quick recap. I know I kind of ranted, it's just I kind of went all over the place at the end, but again, the feminization of poverty is real and it disproportionately affects Latinas. And again, we have the wage gap, the caregiving burdens, and all these systemic barriers. And the way to protect ourselves is from shifting our mindset from survival to strategy by healing our relationship with money, getting educated about finances and other things, building assets, investing ethically, and learning to invest back into our communities because it's going to take us, you know, Latinas doing it together with other women, of course. But again, this episode got a little bit ranty, a little bit feminist, a little bit political. But if y'all get triggered by this episode of like, oh, I'm getting so political or whatever, like, I need y'all to understand that money is political, it's being used to support and lobby these types of programs, these bills and laws that are trying to get pushed, they are supported by money. So, yes, money is political. And again, when I learned about the feminization of poverty, I just got so mad and triggered that I had to make this episode. So let me know what your thoughts are. If this hit home or if you enjoyed this episode, do you like episodes like this where I get a little bit more ranty and a little bit more of a hot take, I guess? Let me know down below if you're watching this on YouTube or just hit me up on Instagram. Let me know your thoughts. Other than that, make sure you subscribe or follow the podcast and share this so that way other Latinas can find this podcast. Other than that, I will see you in the next one. Bye.