By their very nature, the entire set of welfare reform initiatives – sexual regulation, workfare, time limits, and the elimination of the statutory entitlement to poverty assistance – combine with the antifamily pressures exerted by America's low-wage labor market to make childrearing extremely difficult for needy single mothers, a group in which black women and Latinas are massively overrepresented. The data suggest that since the mid-1990s more poor mothers than ever before are voluntarily giving up their children for foster parenting and adoption, even though they have not been accused of child abuse or neglect. Pressed to maintain demanding work schedules outside of the home, deprived of affordable childcare, and lacking adequate income to support their families, many current and former TANF mothers are facing tough challenges. The poor single mother finds that workfare disregards her role as a custodial mother, especially when the TANF program fails to provide her with adequate childcare services. The child support enforcement system tells her, in essence, that poor single women have no business having children in the first place. TANF's abstinence education initiative and the states' promotion of marriage and family cap policies only contribute further to this message.

Today's low-wage labor market, with its poverty-level minimum-wage laws, job insecurity, and lack of health care, childcare and paid family leave, is extraordinarily hostile to poor single mothers.