My Future

How can I improve my/our financial situation? 

Several things determine whether someone will be able to live their dream. One main one is your economic potential. Your potential is based on your circumstances at birth. Were you born into poverty? To LGBTQ+ parents? Raised in a two-parent home? Are you a person of color? 

Generally, we know what happens to most people born in the U.S. based on what they’re born into. This may seem unfair. One minute you're told you can do anything you want; the next minute you’re told that your future is written the minute you're born. The truth is somewhere in between. There might be a likelihood that you will have a particular future, but based on the things you can control, you can actually shape your future. That is known as economic mobility.

Economic mobility means whether you can move above or below the economic potential you were born into.

Young parents are often at a disadvantage because you may not have the same financial resources and education as parents who had their first child after the age of 25. The best way you can achieve positive economic mobility is to combine work with education. This is linked to higher incomes later in life. These stats reveal a lot:

• Unemployment among high school graduates is almost twice as high as that of individuals with a college degree.
• A study on young parents (people who had their first child between the ages of 16-24) found that each 1% increase in parents’ time spent combining work and education leads to a $451 bump in annual family income at age 30.

We’re not going to lie and tell you that it will be easy to parent, go to work, and continue your education—all at the same time. There will be challenges, starting with child care.

Some young parents may have family around to help with child care. If you are together with your child’s other parent, and there’s no one else but you two, then child care will have an impact on your income potential. If you aren’t living with your child’s other parent, then it becomes even more expensive because you have to manage more and constantly make and change arrangements.

Colorado offers several programs to help parents find affordable child care, early childhood education, and preschool for their child:

• Colorado Child Care Assistance Program for Families
• Universal Preschool Colorado
  • In Colorado, every child can access free preschool the year before kindergarten.
• Head Start / Early Head Start

Now that you’ve learned about child care options when it comes to finding a job or getting your GED / paying for college, where do you start? The resources section along the left side of this page includes links to several programs that help young parents find jobs and continue their education.