A Targeted Safety Net: Work and Dependence for Single Mother Families in the 2007–09 Recession

Research shows the U.S. safety net was generous to single mother households in the Great Recession of 2007–09. However, research has also suggested the safety net failed to sufficiently target single mother households. This raises the question: Did the Recession differentially impact single mother households, and how did the safety net respond? I use survey data for 2005–2010 from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) to investigate how the dependence on the safety net and the employment of single mother households transformed in the Recession. Using a difference-in-differences approach and after correcting the data for misreporting, I find that compared to married households, single mother households in the Recession disproportionately lost employment and became more dependent on government transfers for income. My results suggest that in the Recession, social programs additionally targeted single mother households and were an increasingly instrumental income source. Further research may investigate specific program expansions to better understand the behavioral impacts of increasingly targeting single mother households