Facts & Statistics
In New York, the American city that has been hardest hit by the pandemic
more than four hundred and twenty-five thousand children live with single parents, most of them single mothers.
- The New Yorker
3.5 million
parents work in the restaurant industry
The nonprofit workers’ rights organization Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United found that nearly 3.5 million parents work in the restaurant industry and more than 1 million of those are single moms — 40 percent of whom live in poverty.
People have and will continue to die of Covid-19. People also have and will continue to die from the poverty the pandemic is exposing. I work hard and save as much as I can. But like many people in America, I am one disaster away from ruin, a car repair or an unexpectedly high bill, which seem minor in comparison to the pandemic we’re staring down. For single parents, could that disaster be now?
- Single mother, Alison Stine for The Washington Post
Staying home is not an option for Amparo Ramirez, a 38-year old single mother who works preparing food in Los Angeles International Airport. She has no sick leave left and no health insurance, reports California Health Report. Meanwhile, jobs in the restaurant industry are likely to get cut as customers increasingly eat at home to avoid contagion.
- TIME Magazine
1 in 4
children across the country lives in a single-parent household
About 1 in 4 children across the country lives in a single-parent household, a share that has more than doubled since 1970, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 80 percent of those children, nearly 16 million, live in a household headed by a woman.
- The Washington Post
Two-thirds of tipped restaurant workers in the United States are women, who already face low-wages, unreliable hours, and few benefits, as reported in TIME Magazine in partnership with The Fuller Project in September. Fifty-five percent of workers in the restaurant industry and accommodations sector do not have paid leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The inability of women to stay home when sick clearly creates additional risk for everyone.
- TIME Magazine
Women are underrepresented at the top for any number of reasons, but one of the most important ones is that the system they operate within — local and federal laws, and the common employment structure of most restaurants — makes it almost impossible for them to get there while having children. A complete lack of support for pregnancy and childbirth sends a clear message to anyone for whom it's a possibility: This world is not for you.
-Eater
40 Percent
of the 1 million single moms working in the restaurant industry live in poverty
A 2016 report by nonprofit workers’ rights organization Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United found that nearly 3.5 million parents work in the restaurant industry and more than 1 million of those are single moms — 40 percent of whom live in poverty.
Single mothers are more likely to have our savings drained by the high costs of raising children alone, and many of us never recover financially. Half of single mothers make less than $30,000 a year, according to the New York Times.