Sometimes, all that’s needed to tell a story is a map. Single-parent families in 2019 were clustered in the nation’s poorest counties – the Rio Grande Valley, Native reservations on the Great Plains, California’s Inland Empire, the Mississippi Delta, and the Deep South’s Black Belt. A Social Explorer analysis of newly released 2015-19 American Community Survey finds almost 8 million households are led by single parents, with single mothers outnumbering single dads by a 4-to-1 margin.

Single-parents led 21.2 percent of households in Sterling County, Texas, on the edge of the oil-rich Permian Basin. Emporia, Va., had the second-highest rate (20.6 percent), followed by Bullock County, Ala. (20.1 percent), Todd County, S.D. (18.9 percent), and Buffalo County, S.D. (17.9 percent). To see the percentage of single-parent families in your county, use Social Explorer’s award-winning, customizable maps.

Single-Parent Families, 2019. Click here to explore further.

Author: Frank Bass