poverty in America – The Peanut Gallery

Married Fathers: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty

The mainstream media, liberal politicians, activists, and academia bewail child poverty in the U.S. But in these ritual lamentations, one key fact remains hidden: The principal cause of child poverty in the U.S. is the absence of married fathers in the home.

According to the U.S Census, the poverty rate in 2008 for single parents with children was 35.6 percent. The rate for married couples with children was 6.4 percent. Being raised in a married family reduces a child’s probability of living in poverty by about 80 percent.

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Here are some of the highlights of this report:

+ Marriage is rapidly declining in American society… creating a two-caste system, with marriage and education as the dividing line…. Single parents now comprise 70 percent of all poor families with children.

+ Children from single-parent homes are:

More than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime
Twice as likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems
Roughly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school
A third more likely to drop out before completing high school.

+ The effects of being raised in a single-parent home continue into adulthood.

Children from broken and single-parent homes are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30.
Girls from single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to have a child without being married.
Children living in single parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience poverty as adults.

+ Government Complicity

In social service agencies, welfare offices, schools, and popular culture in low-income communities across America, one finds deafening silence on the topic of marriage. The welfare system actively penalizes low-income couples who do marry.

At the beginning of the War on Poverty, a young Daniel Patrick Moynihan, serving in the Administration of President Lyndon Johnson, wrote a seminal report on the negative effects of declining marriage among blacks. The Left exploded, excoriating Moynihan and insisting that the erosion of marriage was either unimportant or benign.

Four decades later, Moynihan’s predictions have been vindicated. The erosion of marriage has spread to whites and Hispanics with devastating results. But the taboo on discussing the link between poverty and the disappearance of husbands remains as firm as it was four decades ago.

+ Marriage: The Antidote to Poverty

To reduce poverty in America, policymakers should enact policies that encourage people to form and maintain healthy marriage and delay childbearing until they are married and economically stable. Marriage is highly beneficial to children, adults, and society. It needs to be encouraged and strengthened, not ignored and undermined.

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For the full report, click here.

Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.

Joe Carter
TGC Blog | January 16, 2014 | Original post here.

Fifty years ago this month, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the ‘war on poverty’ an attempt to harness the power of government to help the poor. Here are nine things you should know about poverty in America.

1. The official method of measuring poverty in America has remained largely unchanged since the early 1960s. The poverty thresholds (or poverty line) were originally developed in 1963-1964 by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration. Orshansky based her poverty thresholds on the economy food plan — the cheapest of four food plans developed by the Department of Agriculture. The actual combinations of foods in the food plans, devised by Agriculture Department dietitians using complex procedures, constituted nutritionally adequate diets; the Agriculture Department described the economy food plan as being “designed for temporary or emergency use when funds are low.” The methodology for calculating the thresholds was established in the mid-1960s and has not changed in the intervening years.

2. The poverty threshold is based on the average amount of income spent on food in 1955. At the time families spent about 33% of their income on food, so Orshansky calculated poverty thresholds for families of three or more persons by taking the dollar costs of the economy food plan for families of those sizes and multiplying the costs by a factor of three — the “multiplier.” The methodology for calculating the thresholds was established in the mid-1960s and has not changed in the intervening years, though the thresholds are updated annually to account for inflation. Today, Americans spend an average of 6.8% of their income on food – the lowest percentage in the world.

3. The federal poverty guideline for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states and D.C. was $23,550 in 2013. (The median household income in 2012 was $51,017.)

4. Most antipoverty efforts by churches are not reflected in the official poverty calculations. Government and private programs aimed at relieving poverty do not lower the official poverty rate since that measure counts only monetary income. Antipoverty programs such as food stamps, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, school lunches, as well as all private food, clothing, and service donations are considered “in-kind benefits” —— and hence not income.

5. From the beginning on the war on poverty until 2012, local, state, and federal spending on welfare programs has totaled $15,000,000,000,000. Currently, the United States spends nearly $1 trillion every year to fight poverty. That amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $82,440 per poor family of four (3.5 times the amount necessary to bring them above the poverty line).

6. When the War on Poverty was announced in 1964, 33 million Americans were in poverty and the official poverty rate was 19%. Today, approximately 46.5 million Americans live in poverty and the official poverty rate is 15%. However, some estimates claim that if in-kind benefits are included in income, poverty rates would have declined to between 0% and 5%.

7. The poverty rate among married couples is only 6 percent. Among married couples who both have full-time jobs the poverty rate is practically zero (0.001%). The poverty rate among single-dads/moms is much higher: 25% for single dads / 31% for single moms.

8. According to the U.S. Census Bureau figures, the average household living in poverty in America has more amenities and a higher standard of living than in most other countries. The typical poor household, as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there are children, especially boys, the family has a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household has a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. Other household conveniences include a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker. The home of the typical poor family is in good repair and is not overcrowded. In fact, the typical average poor American has more living space in his home than the average (non-poor) European has. By its own report, the typical poor family was not hungry, was able to obtain medical care when needed, and had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.

9. The most destitute Americans are often those classified as either temporary and chronic homeless. On a single night in 2012 there were 633,782 homeless people in the United States (0.2% of the total population), including 394,379 who were homeless as individuals and 239,403 people who were homeless in families. In 2012, 99,894 people were chronically homeless, representing just fewer than 16 percent of all homeless people. Chronic homelessness has declined by 19.3 percent since 2007.