The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. For the week ending 11/5/2010: Helping teen moms achieve economic stability. Plus, nearly 1/4 of women giving birth in the U.S. lived in poverty in 2008.
Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with the Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty. Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.
Here’s this week’s news:
• In a recent study, Utah had the third-lowest rate of mothers living in poverty at 15.2 percent. Across the country, nearly a quarter of the women giving birth were living in poverty, according to the Associated Press.
• The Associated Press profiles the work of Dr. Natalie Carroll, an OB-GYN who has dedicated her 40-year career to helping black women and spends a lot of time encouraging her patients to get married; seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, according to government statistics.
• The Orlando Sentinel celebrates the BETA Center, whose counseling, outreach, and therapy services help young teen mothers move on from lives of poverty and substance or physical abuse to obtain degrees and launch careers.
• The New York Times article about 2008 U.S. Census data showing that an increasing number of single mothers have a live-in partner concluded by saying that this same data also demonstrates that nationally one in four mothers who recently gave birth lived in poverty.
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The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team