United States

Mapped: The Share of Single Mom Households in Each U.S. State

Published

1 week ago

November 24, 2024

Pallavi Rao

Graphics/Design:

Anna Diederichs

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Nearly 17% of all American households with children under the age of 18 are run by a single mom.

This means there are over 6 million single moms in the U.S., but that share varies depending on the state, as this map shows.

Data for this graphic and article is sourced from the Badger Institute published 2024. Their figures are based off the latest American Community Survey findings.

ℹ️ Figures for D.C. were excluded from the graphic, but are included for reference in the table below.

Ranked: States With the Highest Share Single Moms

Poorer states in the South—Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia—have some of the highest rates of single mom households.

Rank	State	State Code	Share of Single Mom Households
1	Washington D.C.*	DC	29%
2	Mississippi	MS	24%
3	Louisiana	LA	23%
4	Alabama	AL	20%
5	Georgia	GA	20%
6	South Carolina	SC	20%
7	Arkansas	AR	19%
8	Delaware	DE	19%
9	North Carolina	NC	19%
10	New Mexico	NM	19%
11	Ohio	OH	19%
12	Rhode Island	RI	19%
13	Connecticut	CT	18%
14	Florida	FL	18%
15	Maryland	MD	18%
16	New York	NY	18%
17	Tennessee	TN	18%
18	Illinois	IL	17%
19	Indiana	IN	17%
20	Massachusetts	MA	17%
21	Michigan	MI	17%
22	Missouri	MO	17%
23	Nevada	NV	17%
24	Oklahoma	OK	17%
25	Pennsylvania	PA	17%
26	Texas	TX	17%
27	Arizona	AZ	16%
28	Kentucky	KY	16%
29	Virginia	VA	16%
30	Wisconsin	WI	16%
31	Iowa	IA	15%
32	New Jersey	NJ	15%
33	West Virginia	WV	15%
34	California	CA	14%
35	Kansas	KS	14%
36	Minnesota	MN	14%
37	Nebraska	NE	14%
38	Oregon	OR	14%
39	South Dakota	SD	14%
40	Vermont	VT	14%
41	Alaska	AK	13%
42	Colorado	CO	13%
43	Maine	ME	13%
44	Montana	MT	13%
45	North Dakota	ND	13%
46	Washington	WA	13%
47	New Hampshire	NH	12%
48	Wyoming	WY	12%
49	Hawaii	HI	11%
50	Idaho	ID	11%
51	Utah	UT	9%
N/A	National Average	USA	17%

Note: *U.S. federal district. Figures rounded.

For context, the same region has the highest share of single dad households as well. This indicates that economic pressures of raising children as a single parent are high.

In fact, per statistics from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, nearly one-third of all single parent households were below the poverty threshold in 2021.

The share is far higher for single mothers (35%) than for single dads (17%), but both are much higher than the rate for two-parent households (9.5%).

Zooming out from that bit of analysis, Utah has the lowest share of single mom households in the country. Utah has a large segment of the population that is Mormon, and the religion discourages children outside marriage.

Finally, Pew Research found that nearly a quarter of all American children below 18 lived in a single parent household, the highest share across the world.