Overall, 31 percent of US adults identify today as single, defined as not married, living with a partner, or in a committed relationship. An additional 11 million households are headed by a single parent, a number that has tripled since 1965. Back in 1960, it was just 13 percent by 1980, it was 23 percent. There are so many routes to and reasons for arriving at the single or solo-living life, and more people are living it than ever before: As of 2021, 28 percent of Americans live alone. Some have lived alone, purposely or regretfully, their entire lives. Some are retired some are widowed or divorced some are in long-distance relationships that require two households. Single or solo-living people may or may not be partnered with someone in the long or short term, and they may or may not be parents, but they all live and bear the responsibility for their bills alone. When we talk about all the ways it’s become harder and harder for people to find solid financial footing in the middle class, we have to talk about how our society is still set up in a way that makes it much easier for single people to fall through the cracks.įirst, we need to define a clunky but essential term. For the more than 40 million people who live in this kind of single-income household, it’s also become increasingly untenable. All the expenses of existing in society, on one set of shoulders. If you live by yourself - or as a single parent or caregiver - you don’t have to imagine.
Now imagine paying for all those things completely on your own. You pay for food, and household items like toilet paper and garbage bags and lightbulbs. If you take the subway, there’s a public transit pass.
If you drive a car, there’s gas and insurance. Then there’s the smaller stuff: the utility bills the internet and phone bills Netflix, Hulu, and all your other streaming subscriptions. There are the big-ticket items - your rent or mortgage, your health care, maybe a student loan. Think about your household’s monthly expenses.