On NBC’s Meet the Press on Mother’s Day (May 10), TV journalist Maria Shriver said “Two-thirds of American families rely on the mother’s income to stay above the poverty level.” Media sources including PolitiFact.com say Shriver had her numbers wrong.
According to Philip Cohen, who studies inequality and families at the University of Maryland, “20 percent of families with mothers and children rely on the mother’s income to remain above the poverty line.” Although he agreed with Shriver’s main point “that mothers in many families make a huge difference in the family’s standard of living” he said Shriver “got the specific statistic wrong.”
Shriver tweeted the correction below.
Clarifying what I said on @meetthepress: 2/3 of U.S. families rely on a mother’s income that keeps many families out of poverty, but not all
— Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) May 11, 2015
