cybersteward.net

On Father’s Day, I’d like to wish a good day to all the fathers who may be reading this.

I’d also like to point to an item from the AFL-CIO Now blog about working single fathers. It points out a fact sheet on single fathers from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

A few of the facts cited:

• Among people living in single-parent families headed by a working father, almost 28 percent are economically insecure. CEPR says economically insecure means their income falls below the “basic family budget”—a measure of the basic goods and services needed to make ends meet for where they live. By comparison, among people in all working families, about 17 percent are economically insecure.
• Public assistance, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, public health insurance (Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program) and food stamps, helps single fathers take care of their families. Before taking public assistance into account, 37.6 percent of people in single-father families are economically insecure.
• About one in four men work in low-wage jobs, which CEPR defines as one that pays less than $11.11 an hour. The typical man working in a low-wage job earned $8.64 an hour in 2005. While women are still more likely to work in low-wage jobs than men, the gap between men and women is narrowing. Regardless of gender, the typical low-wage worker today earns about the same per hour, after adjusting for inflation, as they did in 1979.

Click here to check it out.

Filed under: poverty and wealth