With daily life now the most expensive it’s been in 40 years, single parents say they are running out of places to cut costs.
The price of groceries, gas, rent and utilities has marched higher over the past year; but wages have not kept up — and more than half of single parents make less than $15 an hour, according to recent research from Oxfam.
That has left many single parents skipping meals so their children have plenty of food, providing less healthy meals for their families, and culling expenses to the point where any unforeseen cost could mean more debt — or worse.
For these families, whose finances often have slim-to-no wiggle room, inflation — coupled with the end of federal relief efforts like enhanced child tax credit payments — is compounding the financial strain.
“It’s a really tricky game to figure out what can I do, what can I not do and how can I squeeze a little more money here and there?,” said Elisabeth Mendes Saigg, 33, whose husband passed away from sudden heart failure in 2020 at the age of 37. Mendes Saigg was left to raise their two-year-old son, Khayonni, on her own.
Read the rest here: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/economy/single-parent-inflation-economy/index.html