Tallahassee, Florida (April, 2003) — Raise The Nation, a not for profit corporation providing educational grants and scholarships to single parent women, celebrates the graduation of it's first scholarship recipient Jamie Barnes of Tallahassee Florida.

Jamie Barnes moved to Tallahassee from New York City where she was born and raised as an educated woman. Ms. Barnes became a single parent woman in her thirties and has one daughter, who is in the 11th grade and is an honor role student. Ms. Barnes explained that she moved to Tallahassee for a career change, but due to bus schedule conflicts and transportation difficulties was unable to accept the employment opportunities that were offered to her. She was forced to take a low paying position that made it difficult for her to make financial ends meet. It was at this point that she made the decision to go back to school and sought the assistance of Raise The Nation Incorporated.

Ms. Barnes applied for the Continuing Education Scholarship from Raise The Nation and was awarded the scholarship in April 2003. She began attending the CORE Institute School of Massage Therapy and Structural Bodywork on March 4th and graduated on the 3rd of October 2003. Ms. Barnes believes that the Raise The Nation has provided her with the opportunity she was looking for and that it will lead to better employment opportunities and more choices for her and her daughter.

"Single parent women want the opportunity to obtain an education so they have the power, the potential and the ability to provide for their families, free of any dependency on state or federal systems" says Tere McDowell, Executive Director of Raise The Nation.

Raise the Nation is a not for profit corporation whose mission is 'independence through education for single parent women in America'. They provide educational grants and scholarships to single parent women and their children. The distribution of scholarships and grants is determined by the corporation's fund raising success.

For further information, please contact Tere McDowell, Executive Director Raise The Nation, at 505-265-1201 or email at tere.mcdowell@raisethenation.org.

Ms. McDowell is the nations leading expert on single-parent women and non-traditional families.

Washington, D.C. (September, 2003) — New analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research of Census Bureau poverty and income figures reveals continuing economic hard times for women. While single mothers constitute less than one-fifth of all families, they make up half of all families in poverty. Furthermore, almost 40 percent of families headed by African American single mothers lived in poverty in 2002.

"Women heads of households are among the groups taking the hardest hit in the current economic downturn. We need to adjust our public policies to provide them with better support," said Vicky Lovell, IWPR Study Director. "With unemployment rates three percentage points higher than the average for all adult women, it's clear that single moms face an adverse economic environment.

The new poverty data released today show no improvement in the poverty rate of people living in female-headed households, with 28.8 percent living below poverty in 2002, compared with 28.6 percent in 2001 (see below table). The poverty rate for female-headed families is nearly three times as high as the poverty rate for all families. A striking 38.2 percent of families headed by African American single mothers lived in poverty in 2002, compared to 37.4 percent in 2001. 36.4 percent of people living in families headed by Hispanic single mothers lived in poverty in 2002. Even for families headed by single working mothers, the poverty rate is 21.1 percent. Almost half of children living in female-headed households (48.6%) live below the poverty line.

Today's release also included data on the relationship between education and poverty status using a more comprehensive 1998 data source. These data show striking differences in poverty by education status: Only 4.6 percent of families where the head of household has a bachelor's degree live in poverty, whereas 26.9 percent of families in which the household heads has less than a high school degree live in poverty.

According to IWPR Director of Research Barbara Gault, "To really help women and their families escape poverty, states and the federal government need to invest in proven anti-poverty measures, such as increasing access to education and training for poor women, making quality child care available and affordable, making welfare-to-work requirements more reasonable, and providing tax credits for the neediest families."

"Many policy makers are suggesting that marriage promotion will provide a panacea for poor-single mothers; this is a superficial, untried solution to a deeply rooted set of problems. We should not spend scarce public dollars on marriage promotion when states are struggling to provide essential services," said Heidi Hartmann, IWPR Director and CEO. "In addition, policy makers continue to try to discourage women raising young children alone from receiving cash assistance and to demand that they work more and more hours. While IWPR analysis of Census Bureau data shows that the average mother works 24.5 hours per week, some policy makers have proposed requiring 40 hours of weekly work effort from welfare moms."

Household income inequality remained unchanged from 2001 and is at a 35-year high. This shows a continuation in the long-term trend of higher-income households receiving a growing share of total household income.

There was also no improvement in the wage gap, or the difference in mens and womens annual median earnings, with women earning only 76.6 percent of what men earned, compared to 76.3 percent in 2001. This unchanging wage gap puts special economic pressure on women workers in difficult economic times. Efforts such as stronger enforcement of Equal Employment Opportunity laws, more pro-active work by employers to ensure their workplaces are free of discrimination, encouraging women to train for higher-paid non-traditional occupations, and greater participation by men in child-care and other care-giving work would help decrease this gap," noted Dr. Lovell.

Imogen Gunn Research and Media Coordinator Institute for Women's Policy Research 1707 L Street, NW Suite 750 Washington, DC 20036 202/785-5100 ext. 21 www.iwpr.org

Bonnie Braun, Ph.D., CFCS Extension Family Life Specialist 1204 Marie Mount Hall ~ Office 1210H College Park, MD 20742 P: 301-405-3581 F: 301-314-9161 E: BBraun@umd.edu

Albuquerque, NM (April, 2002) — In President Bush's nearly forgotten State of the Union address, he asked all Americans to volunteer two years of their time in community service. So who's responding to the president's call for action? Single mothers, that's who.

Raise the Nation, a non-profit organization known nationwide for its strong advocacy for educational support for single-parent women, has established a fund to help repay or finance the education expenses of professional, working, single-parent women. Student loan repayment grants are available to women who volunteer their professional talents for an average of 8 hours a month over two years either helping women in their community or working in the helping or teaching professions.

"We are pleased to announce our plans to develop a nationwide database of women who either volunteer their professional talents to help other women or who provide their professional services to their community at reasonable rates in exchange for either re-payment of their student loans or assistance in financing their education. Although we are focused on women, anyone who would like to give back to single-parent women and the non-traditional family community is encouraged to register," says Tere McDowell, Raise the Nation co-executive director.

According to Raise the Nation, many women are denied needs-based aid because they do not meet the official definitions of living in crisis or poverty. Often, women fall through the cracks as a result. "Single-parent women tend to make less money than similarly educated men. Professional single-parent women often choose careers in the helping or teaching professions, a choice which leaves them earning approximately half ($30,000) of similarly educated professional men. Their lower income coupled with their frequently sole child-care responsibilities makes it especially difficult if not impossible for them to both repay their student loans and raise their children—the children of the nation," states Kristina Lynn, co-executive director of Raise the Nation.

Applications and donation information is available at www.raisethenation.org

For further information, please contact Tere McDowell, Executive Director Raise The Nation, at 505-265-1201 or email at tere.mcdowell@raisethenation.org.

Ms. McDowell is the nations leading expert on single-parent women and non-traditional families.

Albuquerque, NM (May, 2002) — The Bush administration has backed off of its recent proposal to cut student loan consolidation programs by 1.3 billion dollars due to political pressure and major public outcry. Democratic Representative Jose Serrano of New York told the Associated Press, "this one is a dumb move. Students and debtors are still shaken up by this anti-education attempt and are cautiously looking out for the administration's next dumb move that could create additional hardships in an already uphill battle for many."

Raise the Nation, a non-profit organization known nationwide for its strong advocacy for educational support for single-parent women, is speaking out against this policy shift on behalf of a group particularly affected by this bill—the 59 percent of 13 million single mothers in this country who pursue a higher education to better their lives and the lives of their children. Many are pursuing higher education while also providing the sole financial support for their families.

Student-loan debt now averages nearly $17,000, with 39 percent of borrowers facing unmanageable debt after college, according to a report from The Higher Education Project of State Public Interest Research Groups. In fact, 40 percent of civil cases filed in the US District Court are for student loan default. And that's only the beginning. Student loan creditors now garnish up to 10 percent of a defaulter's income, withholding tax returns, seizing automobiles, filing property liens, and forcing many debtors into bankruptcy.

However, even bankruptcy does not forgive student loans, so many people are forced to choose between honoring student loan debt or other debt, unable to finance both while also supporting their family. Tere McDowell, an educated, professional therapist and 41-year-old single mother of three, was forced to declare bankruptcy on her other debt so she could repay her student loans while struggling to support her children on the $21,000 salary she receives for working with at-risk youth. Although her graduate education did not provide her with the financial freedom she believed it would, it has helped her in her dual role as both the co-executive director of Raise the Nation and the driving force behind Insanity House, an organization dedicated to empowering single parent and non-traditional families through education, grass-roots community building, and political change.

Applications for scholarships and community service as well as donation information can be found at www.raisethenation.org

For further information, please contact Tere McDowell, Executive Director Raise The Nation, at 505-265-1201 or email at tere.mcdowell@raisethenation.org.

Ms. McDowell is the nations leading expert on single-parent women and non-traditional families.

Albuquerque, NM (June, 2002) — Raise the Nation, a non-profit organization known nationwide for its strong advocacy for educational support for single-parent women, is calling on the country to recognize single-parent women who are raising their standard of living and that of their children by continuing their education and advancing their careers. "We are very excited to announce the Raise the Nation with 1 dollar Initiative. The large US single-parent population has the collective power to make an enormous difference with just a pocket-size donation. We are asking the over-13-million single-parent women and their friends and families to join Raise the Nation in honoring these strong and courageous women by donating 1 dollar to this special initiative. Your dollar will help provide college scholarships and grants to re-pay education debt so these women can focus their resources on what is most important-raising their children, our nation," says Stephen Mullens, Raise the Nation CEO.

According to Raise the Nation, there are over 13 million single-parent women raising 20 million children under the age of 18 in this country. Only 11 percent of these women are under the age of 25 and less than 5 percent are teenagers. "The majority of single-parent women are hard-working professional, educated women striving to better both their lives and their families' lives," states Kristina Lynn, Raise the Nation co-executive director. Recent studies support Lynn, finding that 59 percent of single-parent women pursue and attain higher education, compared to 46 percent of their married-parent women counterparts.

However, pursuing and attaining higher education alone isn't always easy. Lynn states, "all too often women with children enter college only to encounter financial and time constraints that force them to drop out. Others experience hardship re-paying accrued educational expenses and are forced into bankruptcy or into working multiple jobs so they can make student loan payments while at the same time supporting themselves and their families." While the cost of college is often over $10,000 a year, the average single-parent woman's household brings in less than $30,000 a year, even with an education.

Research clearly shows that a good education does not necessarily translate to economic stability for the single-parent-woman-headed household. Eliminating the burden of educational debt does help. "Single-parent women face many financial challenges. They are more likely to choose and enter careers in the helping and teaching professions because they are child-centric. These professions require higher levels of education but pay the lowest salaries," says Tere McDowell, the nation's leading expert on single-parent families and Raise the Nation co-executive director.

She continues, "Finances are further complicated by child-support and child-care issues: Only 24 percent of single-parent households headed by women receive full child-support payments, while 32 percent receive no child support at all. In addition, single-parent women spend 32 percent of their weekly income on childcare, a figure that nearly doubles when more than one child needs day care. The extra burden of financing an education is enough to push these families into crisis."

For further information, please contact Tere McDowell, Executive Director Raise The Nation, at 505-265-1201 or email at tere.mcdowell@raisethenation.org.

Ms. McDowell is the nations leading expert on single-parent women and non-traditional families.