putting their welfare benefits in jeopardy. PRWORA requires states to submit a written documentation of their goals and strategies to reduce non-marital pregnancies and births, even offering a financial incentive of $20 million each to five states with the largest declines in their "illegitimacy ratios" and abortion rates. It is argued that this has resulted in states making abortions more inaccessible and legally punishing childbearing by not granting more assistance to families even after the number of children increases. This policy has been criticized for being a punitive system that violates the rights of both the women and their children by intruding on the mothers' constitutional rights to procreation, privacy, and reproductive choice, which includes their decisions to be a parent or not; and penalizing mothers for exercising their right to have children. Susan L. Thomas has pointed out the bill fails to prove enough governmental interest warrants its child exclusionary policy and attempts to conserve money through the penalization of women who exercise their constitutional reproductive rights. Single-mother households and "disconnected" families Jason DeParle of the New York Times, after interviews with single mothers, said that they have been left without means to survive, and have turned to desperate and sometimes illegal ways to survive, including shoplifting, selling blood, scavenging trash bins, moving in with friends, and returning to violent partners. A study from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities stated that cutting access to welfare through the PRWORA was "a major factor in the lack of progress in reducing poverty among people in working single-mother families after 1995". While there was improvement in poverty rates for families not headed by single mothers, poor single mother households overall sunk further into poverty. Economists focusing on antipoverty policy have identified higher percentages of "disconnected" single mother households following the welfare legislation of the 1990s— households in extreme poverty that do not receive government assistance or wages from employment. A study conducted by economists at Rutgers University found that states with stricter limits on receiving benefits before one is required to find work cause more single mothers to become disconnected. These state rules, having been created after the loosening of federal authority by PRWORA, are identified as key considerations in the disconnecting of single mothers. The "Final Rule" provision enforced by the passing of PRWORA is a provision that attempts to establish paternity for children living in poverty. This provision