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, as Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details in the graphic below, 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.
Check out Mapped: Poverty Rates by State to see the correlations mentioned in this article visualized.
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