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WORK, WELFARE, AND SINGLE MOTHERS If you want to know a big problem in our country today it is single mothers and welfare. If you look at all the money that we throw away each and every year, you wouldn=t think this would be a problem. With all the rich giving to the poor, some should go to single parents trying their best to take care of their children. This could be easy, if they would just go and get a job they would be off welfare very quickly. But it isn=t that easy, study=s show that most welfare mothers have bad or no schooling at all, they are the woman that has been lay off of work, and the one=s that are young and don=t have enough to pay for their child=s living conditions. A lot of things changed in 1996 as federal lawmakers dramatically changed the rules poor people live by and made states responsible for implementing these rules. Twenty-five percent of the mothers on each state=s welfare caseload must be working by the end of 1997. By 2002, fifty percent must be working. Studies show that mothers that leave the welfare to quickly are the one=s that will not make it far in life, not far in life but the one=s that will be the least likely to succeed in getting off welfare and taking care of their families. Their main problem is making the transaction from welfare to work. They have problems making ends meat. They sometimes receive extra money from community groups, local charities, working extra jobs, obtaining cash from network members. They have to hid most of their income from their caseworkers so they could keep their welfare benefits. It was also hard for working mothers as they faced larger budget deficits than welfare mothers because they often didn=t Medicaid and had considerable work-related expenses. Working mothers had less time to work a side job or even get extra money from community groups and charities. It is a known fact that is harder to make ends meet when working than collecting welfare. All the studies are from four main cities which are Boston, Chicago, Charleston, and San Antonio. These were the cities picked to represent the study. The cost of living was different in all these places. They took into consideration different races, age, education, work experiences, and the background they came from. All these differed in all areas due to these things.