40% OF AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK - AND PROBABLY INTO POVERTY

Forty percent of American children are born out of wedlock. This sentences the U.S. to another generation of widening inequality and slower human capital development.

HOW TRUE: SINGLE PARENT HOUSEHOLDS ARE THE SINGLE GREATEST PREDICTOR FOR POVERTY AND KIDS WHO FAIL TO ACHIEVE UPWARD MOBILITY.


MORE:

• The poverty rate for all children in married-couple families is 8.2 percent. By contrast, the poverty rate for all children in single-parent families is four times higher at 35.2 percent.[3]

• The number of single-parent families has grown considerably since the onset of the War on Poverty. In 1960, less than 12 percent of children lived in single-parent families. By 2000, that figure had more than doubled, rising to 27.6 percent.

... when poor single mothers are married to single men of similar age, race, and education, their marriage lifts the family out of poverty in about 80 percent of cases. Overall, child poverty would be nearly a third lower today if the traditional two-parent family had not deteriorated between 1960 and 2000.

SANTORUM IS RIGHT: IF WE WANT TO END POVERTY, THEN WE NEED TO PROMOTE MARRIAGE.