Much
of the debate about the growing gap between rich and poor in
America focuses on the changing job force, the cost of living, and
the tax and regulatory structure that hamstrings businesses and
employees. But analysis of the social science literature
demonstrates that the root cause of poverty and income disparity is
linked undeniably to the presence or absence of marriage. Broken
families earn less and experience lower levels of educational
achievement. Worse, they pass the prospect of meager incomes and
family instability on to their children, making the effects
intergenerational.
A
child's path to achieving a decent income as an adult--and avoiding
the poverty trap--is still the traditional one: complete school,
get a job, get married, and have children, in that order.
Obviously, a stable income cannot be guaranteed; ultimately,
children's own decisions affect their income potential, and
dropping out of school, taking drugs, or having children early and
outside of marriage could derail their progress at any time.
Beyond those decisions, however, studies
show that income disparity in America is affected most by the
stability of a child's home environment--primarily, whether that
child has married parents or is part of a broken family.
Consider:
-
In 1950, 12 out of every 100 children
born entered a broken family; by 1992, 58 out of every 100 children
born entered a broken family.
-
Children living with a single mother
are six times more likely to live in poverty than are children
whose parents are married.
-
Of families with children in the lowest
quintile of earnings, 73 percent are headed by single parents; 95
percent in the top quintile are headed by married couples.
-
In 1994, over 12.5 million children
lived in single-parent families that earned less than $15,000 per
year; only 3 million such children lived with families who had
annual incomes greater than $30,000.
-
Three-quarters of all women applying
for welfare benefits do so because of a disrupted marriage or
live-in relationship. Those who leave the welfare system when they
get married are the least likely to return.
-
Cohabitation doubles the rate of
divorce. Cohabitation with someone other than one's future spouse
quadruples the rate of divorce.
-
Divorce reduces the income of families
with children by an average of 42 percent. Almost 50 percent of
these families experience poverty.
-
Married couples in their mid-fifties
amass four times the wealth of divorced individuals ($132,000
versus $33,600).
-
Children in stepfamilies and
single-parent families are almost three times more likely to drop
out of school than are children in intact families.
It
is time to change direction. Congress, states, and local
communities can play important roles in rebuilding the family to
ensure that America's children escape the poverty trap and reach
their full potential. Specifically:
- Congress should focus on ways
to undo the bias against marriage in federal programs. For example,
it should direct the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) to review
federal programs to identify those for which the demand for
assistance grows with an increase in broken families. Congress
should eliminate the marriage penalty in the Earned Income Tax
Credit (EITC) and all other poverty programs. It should examine the
evidence in the states on the success of their welfare-to-work
programs and consider making federal welfare assistance to the
states conditional on an immediate work requirement for all
recipients. It could direct federal dollars to study the effects of
marriage on income potential and direct federal agencies to
consider the results of this research in developing and
administering programs as much as feasible. It should require that
federal funds to schools are not used in programs that downplay the
importance of marriage or the virtues of abstinence. And it should
give local governments access to the same tools that state
governments have to track absentee fathers who owe child
support.
- State governments should
require parents who want a divorce to prove that the divorce is
necessary for the well-being of their children. They should enforce
zero tolerance for out-of-wedlock fathers who do not pay child
support. And they should examine the school curriculum to ensure
that it does not undermine the marriage-based family and clearly
demonstrates the risks and effects of divorce and cohabitation as
well as the high financial cost of being an unmarried father.
- Churches and the local
community should encourage the use of "community marriage
covenants" to reduce the likelihood of divorce. And because regular
religious worship has been linked to more stable marriages and
other benefits, they should make church membership and regular
worship among the poor a priority.
Patrick
F. Fagan is William H. G. FitzGerald Senior Fellow in
Family and Cultural Issues at The Heritage Foundation.