‘Marriage gap’ and addressing poverty

Published 9:51 pm Wednesday, January 15, 2014

When discussing the “War on Poverty,” we often run into a classic chicken-and-egg question: Is poverty the result of broken families, or are broken families the result of poverty?

It’s an important question because it helps determine what we can — and should — do to address poverty. If the failure of the institution of marriage is the real culprit, as the evidence seems to show, then that’s what should be addressed.

But the left in America doesn’t like that view of the problem. It’s not “inclusive” and it’s not politically correct. Single motherhood should be celebrated, not vilified, they say. Families “come in all shapes and sizes,” they contend.

In fact, the left says, it’s “income inequality” or “naked capitalism” that’s to blame.

The left has this one all wrong.

“If President Obama wants to reduce income inequality, he should focus less on redistributing income and more on fighting a major cause of modern poverty: the breakdown of the family,” writes former White House official Ari Fleisher in the Wall Street Journal recently. “A man mostly raised by a single mother and his grandparents who defied the odds to become president of the United States is just the person to take up the cause.”

The problem isn’t income inequality, it’s “marriage inequality.” People who get married (and stay married), preferably before having children, are less likely to be poor or remain poor.

“The statistics make clear what common sense tells us: Children who grow up in a home with married parents have an easier time becoming educated, wealthy and successful than children reared by one parent,” Fleisher notes.

He cites a study by the Heritage Foundation.

“The U.S. is steadily separating into a two-caste system with marriage and education as the dividing line,” the study reports. “In the high-income third of the population, children are raised by married parents with a college education; in the bottom-income third, children are raised by single parents with a high-school diploma or less.”

The two issues are actually linked, Fleisher says.

“Marriage inequality is a substantial reason why income inequality exists,” he writes. “For children, the problem begins the day they are born, and no government can redistribute enough money to fix it. If redistributing money could solve the problem, the $20.7 trillion in 2011 dollars the government has spent on welfare programs since 1964 — when President Johnson declared the ‘war on poverty’ — would have eliminated income inequality a long time ago.”

Why won’t a government check fix the problem? It’s a question of values and decisions.

“Given how deep the problem of poverty is, taking even more money from one citizen and handing it to another will only diminish one while doing very little to help the other,” Fleisher says. “A better and more compassionate policy to fight income inequality would be helping the poor realize that the most important decision they can make is to stay in school, get married and have children — in that order.”

When society accepts that truth, then things might begin to change.