These Single Moms Are Forced to Choose: Reveal Their Sexual Histories or Forfeit Welfare – By Eli Hager (ProPublica) / Sept 17 2021
Women who apply for welfare often have to identify who fathered their children and when they got pregnant, among other deeply personal details. State governments use that information to pursue child support from the dads — and then pocket the money.
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Amberly Sanchez had a job as an accountant at a real estate company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when she was laid off due to the pandemic. Then an electrical fire destroyed her apartment building, forcing her and her 16-month-old daughter Avery to stay in a $400-a-week motel. She’d lost everything, from parenting essentials — crib, baby clothes, toy car — to her own mother’s ashes.
This spring, she applied for welfare.
Sanchez, who is 33, expected more than financial assistance from the state — in part because she was distantly aware of the history of welfare reform, a federal law that passed 25 years ago this summer. Given that legislation’s emphasis on putting welfare recipients to work, she said, she thought that welfare officials would push her to get a new job: “In fact, I really hoped they’d help me with that.”
Instead, the New Mexico Human Services Department caseworker who called the next day fixated on an unexpected question: Who was baby Avery’s biological father?
