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When did this thread become about Black people. Seems a lot of old white people on C-D would like to blame Blacks for all of the world's problems.
A few comments become "a lot of old white people" blaming blacks for all the world's problems. You don't even know my or the other person's age. Hyperbole much?
Brookings has a history of being liberal, but it is centrist. There are plenty of so-called liberals who want to destroy the two-parent family, not strengthen it.
So tell me what is the nefarious plan Liberals have to destroy the two-parent family?
A few comments become "a lot of old white people" blaming blacks for all the world's problems. You don't even know my or the other person's age. Hyperbole much?
The lousy socioeconomic class mobility of the bottom 20% isn't just a black problem. Affluent professional couples teach an education ethic and work ethic to their children. The bottom 20% doesn't do that. That just perpetuates generational poverty. White trash in Appalachia has the same problem.
IF you want to help the poor, donate to a competent agency with a proven track record. If you want to personally help, take time out to sit and talk with them and let them know they are important. That will do more for them than a free lunch on one day.
So tell me what is the nefarious plan Liberals have to destroy the two-parent family?
I wouldn't call it nefarious but the crazy public policy we have is certainly contributing. A low income single woman in a red state doesn't qualify for Medicaid. If she gets knocked up, she does. And her kid qualifies for CHIP kid Medicaid. Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996 where cash welfare has a 5 year lifetime cap. The "T" in TANF. That reform also said that there is no extra cash for popping out more kids when you're on public assistance. What it didn't fix is all the safety net goodies that go to a woman when she goes from low income single with no children to "pregnant" and then "single mother". It sends all the wrong messages. If she gets married, she doesn't get those goodies. It wouldn't be rational to get married.
I wouldn't call it nefarious but the crazy public policy we have is certainly contributing. A low income single woman in a red state doesn't qualify for Medicaid. If she gets knocked up, she does. And her kid qualifies for CHIP kid Medicaid. Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996 where cash welfare has a 5 year lifetime cap. The "T" in TANF. That reform also said that there is no extra cash for popping out more kids when you're on public assistance. What it didn't fix is all the safety net goodies that go to a woman when she goes from low income single with no children to "pregnant" and then "single mother". It sends all the wrong messages. If she gets married, she doesn't get those goodies. It wouldn't be rational to get married.
I have seen a few single mothers with this mindset. Keyword: a few. I have met many single mothers who aren't living off the dole and have become responsible people so I don't have this image that equates single mother with welfare queen. So what we have is a subset of a the group of individuals that are morally bankrupt.
IMO on this forum people are so politically obsessed that they believe public policy has a strong and powerful influence on social behavior. I strongly disagree with that. I think it has some effect on social behaviors but there are many factors as to why people's attitudes towards certain things like sex and relationships. The people who think that changing laws will magically change people's attitudes don't really understand people.
It's the eternal argument. While I agree with you for the most part, quotes like these never seem to change anyone's mind.
I think the most important thing that could be done to get people out of poverty is to promote the success sequence. Marriage, then kids....in that order. Even some liberal researchers are (finally) admitting our 40% out of wedlock birth rate is a big contributor to income and wealth inequality:
Even liberal think tanks like the Brookings Institution say restoring the 2 parent family is essential if we are serious about reducing poverty:
And then there is the nearly 3/4 out of wedlock birth rate in the African American community which the "leaders" refuse to address. Various sources put that around 72-76%.
Wanted to note on both that economy is different today than in the past. In the past at least there was a chance for middle class whites in particular to live off of one income and take care of an entire family. Today, due to both materialism, inflation, and debt, it is nearly impossible for a family to live off of one income.
So when we speak on single parenting and its effect on poverty, one has to consider the fact that a majority of families always had one working parent prior to 1980 in particular. Yet today, most married families have to have two working parents to live at the same level.
Will note that I do agree marriage and having two working adults decreases poverty due to two incomes being more than one. As a black person, I'll also share that black people/leaders do discuss single parenting in the black community and due to that we are aware of the fact that the out of wedlock birthrate is not reflective of the black marriage rate and so in many ways is misleading. Black women marry at later ages than other women. By age 40 about 65% of black women have been married at least once. The average age for the first marriage of a black woman is age 30 compared to 26 for white women. Usually when a black woman first marries, she marries the father of a child she may have had out of wedlock.
It is always odd to me that many people don't believe that black people/leaders don't speak about or know about issues affecting our demographic or our community. More often than not we know more about what is going on than non-black people since these issues directly affect us and there are black sociologist and economists and statisticians who track and study these trends. There are even various "black" conferences every year by various leadership organizations that discuss these issues via panels and reports are generated. Due to them not being seen as politically sexy or relevant by mainstream media, most whites and/or non-black Americans just don't know that this goes on. This issue and others that many don't think we discuss are ongoing issues of interest, study, and debate within black America.
However, one must also recognize the fact that unlike whites, blacks even when marriage rates were higher, usually always had 2 adults working in the the household. Black women have always had higher employment participation rates. Also that even as out of wedlock births increased amongst all populations, that poverty decreased as well.
I agree that marriages do decrease poverty because as stated above, two adults make more money than one adult. But we have to acknowledge that the socio-economic conditions today have changed since the 20th century and today it is much harder for a household to only have one working adult. If you moved those 20th century married couples with 4 kids to the 21st century and only one of them worked, they also would live in poverty due to the economic conditions today. Poverty is an interesting subject and has various suggested solutions to combat it, but IMO it will never be eradicated in this country and even if more people married, both would still have to work and so that family would have to pay childcare and associated costs (transportation, food, fees, etc.) that would decrease their family income so it is no guarantee that marriage would significantly increase the real incomes of families.
Sure, Ben, I guess hordes of Africans storming European shores forgot to brush up on your truism otherwise they would have stayed put to let rigor, hunger and deprivations lead them to prosperity. Capitalism depends on human depravity for its dear life, a portion of work force is thrown a jucier bone to save on policing costs by turning lower end drones in their own jailers working hard to jump a notch up a ladder instead of causing trouble for the stakeholders. However, capitalism cannot exist without coercion, coercion cannot exist without human depravities. Education fans are ridicilous, an educated wage slave is still on mercy of buyers. Wage cogs, educated or not, must arrange themselves in a way as to create necessary supply of the cogs living hand to mouth at the bottom ledges of economy and willing to put up with whatever to earn a paycheck, education does not really exempt anyone from sliding down the ladder. As education, certification, etc. speads through the system the day will come when a good chunk of underclass will hold a college degree of some sort. Education is optional, underclass is vital for everything to work the way it works. You just cant run capitalism as we know it with free uncoerced people.
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
Benjamin Franklin
Still holds true today. Go to a game preserve or national park and you're admonished to not feed the animals because it causes them to become dependent on humans and they lose their ability to forage for themselves. Yet we hand out food stamps like candy at Halloween.
In addition to stagnant wages, low-skilled jobs are more vulnerable to market cycles and changes, new financial vehicles benefits the middle and upper class while relatively leaving the lower class in the dust, and the cost of living has outpaced wage growth leading to increased social strain when people have to do more with relatively less.
I'm all for wealth redistribution in the form or philanthropy, taxation, incentives, and investments. It's hard to determine the right mix at the right time for the right people, but you have to try. The natural flow of things is evolution and entropy; everything else takes planning and hardwork.
The right mix is voluntary charity. When government takes by force from those who produce and gives it to those who don't, no one is raised up. Quite the opposite, those who produce are lowered. Those who believe socialism is the answer to all our societal problems explain away its failure by saying the right people haven't been in charge. They totally ignore human nature and how too many people just want to suckle at the government teat.
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