Low-income and a single mom – then the coronavirus pandemic hit

PORTSMOUTH – Acting as a steady reminder, on a wall in Traci Cobbett’s kitchen, a sign reads "behind every great woman is herself.“

Around the corner, Cobbett’s 8-year-old daughter, Anna, sits in a small plastic chair with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, doing schoolwork from a laptop in the living room. Intermittently, Anna brushes a doll’s silver blonde hair, while listening to class activities through "Minion“ headphones.

“It’s been very, very hard,” said Cobbett, a 41-year-old single mother who is currently unemployed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anna, who has severe ADHD and a learning disability, is navigating second grade through a computer screen from their small public housing apartment at Wamesit Place. Diagnosed with asthma, Cobbett is considered to have a higher-risk of COVID-19 complications. She’s only going out for essentials.

As of last month, the family of two’s only income are child support payments from Anna’s father, a hopefully-soon unemployment check, and $16 a month in food stamps.

Cobbett’s previous employment as a school bus driver – and the child support dollars she receives – work against her in the federal assistance process; she makes “too much“ to qualify for a greater food subsidy, but barely enough to support the two of them.

If Anna’s father loses his job as a result of the coronavirus, Cobbett worries the child support payments will stop.

According to the Census Bureau, about 30% of single-mother-led families live below the poverty line. Now, amid a global health emergency that has essentially shut down the U.S. economy, many are finding themselves laid off from work, with children home around the clock trying to learn remotely because schools are closed indefinitely.

For many, those are breakfasts and lunches they didn’t have to scrape together before – as schools provided them through free or reduced meal service.

Other mothers are still doing work deemed essential by state governments, struggling to arrange and afford child care.

Entities that typically offer free resources, like public libraries, have closed for the time being, cutting off critical access points for low-income families. These same families are worried about equity gaps as their children attempt to do schoolwork from home, likely without the same gadgets and access as their middle- to upper-class peers.

And for families dependent on WIC – the federal assistance program Women, Infants and Children – many are finding panicked shoppers have purchased all of the WIC-eligible food at grocery stores. Social services organizations have begun to urge shoppers to pay attention to price labels that show WIC eligibility, and instead opt for other brands.

While single fathers are certainly experiencing similar challenges, census numbers show women make up approximately 80% of single parents, and they’re statistically more likely to work in low-wage occupations, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

The NWLC says of the more than 23 million people in the U.S. working jobs that typically pay $10.50 per hour or less — as home health aides, child care workers, fast food workers, restaurant servers, maids and cashiers – two-thirds are women.

“The health pandemic is another incredibly heavy challenge added onto an already burdensome amount of tasks that they have on their plate,” said Donna Marsh, director of New Generation, a Greenland shelter for pregnant women and single mothers. “And there’s seemingly no end in sight.”

Marsh said for women struggling with mental health or substance misuse issues, “they can’t have face-to-face counseling, go to recovery support groups. There’s so many pieces of what was keeping them on track taken away now. It’s financial, it’s mental, it’s physical, its everything.”

Tammy Joslyn, executive director at Operation Blessing and resident services coordinator for the Portsmouth Housing Authority, knows the distress because she fields the calls.

“It's very clear to us that the needs of the mothers we serve are drastic, based on the daily phone calls of, ’What do I do?’” she said. “Before the pandemic, mothers were sending their children to school. Breakfast, lunch and education with assurance would be provided (while they could work). Now single mothers are left to isolate, and maintain the needs of the entire family.”

No one knows when businesses and schools will reopen, and society will again move freely, but low-income single moms are a population acutely aware of that unpredictability.

Per MIT’s living wage calculator, a single-mother with two children earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – also New Hampshire’s minimum wage – needs to work 138 hours per week, nearly the equivalent of working 24 hours per day for six days, to earn a living wage.

'I’m wicked afraid’

During the week ending March 21, N.H. workers filed 21,878 unemployment claims, a 3,308% increase from the prior week. Maine wasn’t far behind, with 21,459 claims filed.

Richard Lavers, deputy commissioner at New Hampshire Employment Security, said whether someone is a single parent is not information collected during the claim filing process, so there isn’t an immediate way to know just how many are out of work as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The city of Portsmouth’s Welfare Administrator Ellen Tully said she is just starting to see “the tip of the iceberg that is going to be this unemployed segment of the population.”

Two of the first people to reach out to her, she said, were single moms who had lost their income and knew they wouldn’t be able to pay April 1 rent. Tully pegged single parents, specifically single mothers, as “the bulk of my clientele.”

“Most people, even if they go paycheck to paycheck, they make it work. But now there's no paycheck,” Tully said.

Tully, who also administers welfare services for Greenland, Rye, New Castle and Newington, said it’s “still very early in the game” for welfare departments as far as seeing the true impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Cobbett was one of the thousands who lost her job that week in March, as schools announced indefinite closure and her work as a bus driver was no longer required.

“I'm really ready to bounce my head off a brick wall," Cobbett said this week. ”I'm not a stay-at-home person.“

Cobbett has lived at Wamesit Place – a subsidized 100-unit family development owned by the Portsmouth Housing Authority – since 2012, at which time she had no income. Since then, she’s weened herself off reliance on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal assistance program known as TANF.

Anna, whose last name is Ellery, is a second-grader at Dondero Elementary School. Each morning, she joins the daily video calls with her class through the camera on Cobbett’s phone.

“She’s missing school,” Cobbett said. “In her brain, school is learning, home is for fun. She's home and wants to play. She's having a hard time doing the learning aspect at home.”

Their apartment is a hodgepodge of Anna’s youth and her mom’s interior adornment. There’s a Mr. Potato Head by dozens of stacked DVDs, a box of Legos, and ponies scattered on the floor next to a child’s pink armchair with embroidered flowers.

Photographs are hung among dream catchers and wall stickers with quotes about family and love.

The change has been challenging for both of them. While Cobbett awaits unemployment checks, she scrambles to feed Anna 10 more meals a week she wasn’t worrying about before.

One morning this week, Cobbett put on her jacket and kissed Anna seated at her miniature desk, before walking across the street to the Portsmouth School District’s daily meal delivery, done in several neighborhoods around the city via school buses. The deliveries provide families with a breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday – exactly what the kids were getting at school.

Cobbett quickly smoked a cigarette outside and then returned to the apartment with two brown paper bags, feeding Anna a yogurt parfait from one.

“Do you want the granola?” she called from the kitchen. Anna answered with a confident “no.“

“I was smart enough to save some of my money from my taxes, but now I’m blowing through my summer money,” Cobbett said. She explained she saves her tax return each year to get her and Anna through the summer when she doesn’t get paid by the bus company.

“Now I'm worried about the summer months when we don't have the money to live on,” she said. “That money makes sure there is gas in the car, my cellphone is paid.”

Cobbett strategizes by saving her $16 per month in food stamps for two to three months at a time. She’ll then use the sum to stock up on things like frozen meats.

"Some months are better than others,“ she said.

She gets less than $400 a month through child support. Anna hasn’t seen her father since the health emergency began due to recommended self-isolation measures, and Cobbett doesn’t know if he’s still employed.

Sometimes, Cobbett and Anna go to Gather food pantry on Wednesdays, but Cobbett insists not to take from those with less than her.

"I have my tax return and food stamps,“ she said. ”Some of the people who are out of work have nothing, we do have something. If I have other avenues, I will use it. I'm not gonna take what someone else needs.“

In the midst of all the financial uncertainty, Cobbett is scared her daughter will fall behind in school as a result of at-home learning. Cobbett herself was at a third-grade reading level in high school, and ultimately passed the HiSET exam in 2014. Anna is already showing impeded progress, she noted.

Portsmouth Schools Superintendent Steve Zadravec said the district is working hard to connect with families like Cobbett and Anna. Special education, he said, is one of the most complicated services in a remote environment because it often requires a physical connection with students.

“We’re trying to do anything we can,” Zadravec said. “But we also know when we come back to school, students will re-enter in different places. We will have to help students catch up who might not have made as much progress in this environment.”

Cobbett and Anna have their ups and downs in the tight living quarters, but Cobbett said her daughter is slowly learning whose in charge.

“Who is the boss?” Cobbett asked Anna. The girl responded, “T-R-A-C-I,” spelling out her mom’s name.

’Huge mental load'

Todd Marsh, welfare director for the city of Rochester and newly named housing unit leader for the Strafford County Public Health Network’s COVID-19 Incident Management Team, said the already imperfect balance of employment and solo parenting has increased “tenfold” as a result of the unprecedented health crisis.

“Many working single parents have been laid off from employment or left employment to be home with their children, many of whom are without child care and accessing education remotely and needing parental guidance,” he said. “Both scenarios (are) leaving mentally exhausting feelings of insecurity, and in many cases, housing and food insecurity.”

For those out of work, Marsh said, most will eventually return to their previous jobs once the crisis passes, which parents he serves view as a positive light in a negative situation, “but not before bills are due and food cupboards and refrigerators reveal increasing emptiness.”

Five days a week, Christine Freeman’s 13-year-old daughter is the head of the household from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., because Freeman is still working amid the pandemic – and she can’t afford child care.

Having her three children – ages 6, 11 and 13 – home 24/7 was not something she’d planned for. But someone has to pay the bills and keep food on the table.

Freeman works as a cashier at TravelCenters of America on Route 33 in Greenland, a truck stop with food, fuel and other amenities.

“I’ve been fortunate because the trucking industry is still vital, so that keeps me employed,” she said, noting the job allows the family to “barely“ make ends meet. Freeman and her children’s father are amicable, she said, and she receives some financial support from him.

Freeman had this Thursday off from work. The family’s apartment, also at Wamesit Place in Portsmouth, smelled of just-baked banana bread. Her youngest played with a dollhouse in the corner of the living room, clearing out all of its furniture and then redecorating.

Freeman, 36, has been a single mother for about 16 months. Her 6-year-old Autumn attends first grade at Dondero Elementary, while 11-year-old Carter and 13-year-old Ella go to Portsmouth Middle School.

“It’s hard right now, managing school and work and cooking and cleaning and all the things that moms take on,” Freeman said. “The grocery bill has kind of climbed exponentially. What do you do when you’re stuck in the house? You eat.”

Before work each morning, Freeman stops by Portsmouth High School to pick up free meals for the kids, and then drops them off back home.

“Ella makes sure nobody goes out, nobody comes in,” Freeman said. “That’s my No. 1 rule.”

Ella and Carter are doing much of their schoolwork online, but Autumn requires a parental presence most of the time. Most days Freeman returns home around 4:30 p.m. after a full work day and they start Autumn’s schoolwork then.

“It’s concerning,” Freeman said. “I want to be here to help them through their learning and be here to cook for them and do things that a stay-at home mom might do. I just kind of have to trust that Ella is going to step up, and we all have to step up and be responsible right now.”

Freeman said Ella and Carter are “on the honor system” with their schoolwork. “I’m relying on them to navigate through that,” she said.

Freeman called the pandemic “a huge mental load” and worries about her kids when she’s at work.

“I think my kids are definitely going to fall behind,” she said. “With teachers, they’re there to help them along. They know what they’re doing and I don’t. And I don’t necessarily have the time that I need to sit down with them.”

She sighed deeply while seated on her couch, with Autumn outstretched across her lap.

“It is very overwhelming. There’s just so many things on my plate."

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