With the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), policymakers and researchers have recognized the importance of employment and earnings as a key way out of poverty and dependency for single mothers. During the middle and late 1990s, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, aided by a strong economy, helped move many recipients off the welfare rolls and into work. Several studies have looked at the labor force transitions of former welfare recipients, but few have focused on earnings and income progression, poverty dynamics, and the pathways out of poverty for single mothers (including those who have never received welfare). Single mothers represent a group vulnerable to extensive contact with poverty, and it is important to discern their prospects for long-term self-sufficiency. This study seeks to broaden knowledge about the extent to which single mothers remain out of poverty and the factors most strongly associated with their continued economic progress. We used the 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data, collected by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, to examine the income and employment experiences of single mothers who exited poverty. We identified single mothers who exited poverty during 2001, and tracked their experiences over the subsequent two-year period.