Additional Income Keeps Single Moms Off Welfare Typical Low-Wage Jobs Women Find Not Enough, New UW Study Finds

Poor women with children have a better chance of getting off welfare if they have other income and support in addition to the low-wage jobs they typically get, a new University of Washington study found.

The study by the Washington Kids Count project found most single mothers below the poverty line will return to welfare within three years.

But a single mother with an $18,000-a-year income has better than a 50 percent chance of staying off welfare, and a single mother with a $22,000-a-year income has a 75 percent chance of staying off.

The problem is that most women who have been on welfare can get only part-time, low-pay jobs and rely on other help such as food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child care subsidies or income from somebody else in their household to stay off welfare, said Richard Brandon, the study’s project director.

“What we found is that not many women who’ve been on welfare can get a job that brings in $18,000 a year,” Brandon said.

But state Rep. Suzette Cooke, R-Kent, chairwoman of the House Children and Family Services Committee, said welfare mothers need to do more with less.

“Of course it’s going to make it easier to stay off welfare when there’s additional earnings outside the basic job income,” Cooke said.

Women receiving welfare should show more “creativity” in coping with their situations, Cooke said, and citizens and employers should also help them out.

Washington Kids Counts has calculated that a “no frills” budget for a family of three, assuming $250 a month for food, is $23,000 a year. That is equivalent to a fulltime job at $11 an hour.

Cooke and other Republicans want to cut off welfare benefits after two years to recipients who are not incapacitated, in school or a job training program, caring for a child under age 3, or following an approved job search program.