The government’s approaches to welfare and childcare subsidies are operating at cross-purposes, and the mismatch of incentives perpetuates difficulty for single mothers.

Single motherhood is a tough gig by any measure. But we do single mothers little good by paying them what Indigenous advocate Noel Pearson calls “sit-down money” for as much as the first eight years of their child’s life. That period can become much longer if a parent has multiple children, because the eight-year clock restarts each time another child is born.