Civics Lesson 101: The War on Poverty

[Foxfyre]

Wikipedia recognizes that: "The dominant role of the federal government in road finance has enabled it to pass laws in areas outside of the powers enumerated in the federal Constitution. By threatening to withhold highway funds, the federal government has been able to force state legislatures to pass a variety of laws”

Of course, some laws passed this way like seat belt and minimum drinking age laws are beneficial but many infringe upon states authority to set their own laws that might better apply locally. The federal mandate for a 55mph speed limit was bad law because it made perfectly law abiding citizens lawbreakers overnight. Many times when the dollars come back from the feds they come with mandates meant to help special interests. Federal mandates for highway fund usage often specify that a 'prevailing wage' (union wages) be paid thereby raising cost and eating up as much as 80 percent of the received federal funds. ( The Road to Privatization: Let States Take Charge of Highway Dollars [Mackinac Center] )

Further, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was recently making noises about how he would like to ban all cell phone use in cars, even 'hands free' units! Fed education funds could be denied, via the Solomon Amendment, to those Universities that deny ROTC access on their campus. The list goes on and on.
JM

While some of this might be seen as non sequitur re poverty issues, federal mandates re wages, benefits, hiring practices etc. certainly are not unrelated to the "War on Poverty."

I wonder how many people are poor due to federal dickering with wages, benefits, hiring practices alone? Certainly environmental regulations, fees, restrictions, OSHA mandates, etc. all play a part in all that. And of course you can never ignore tax structures in the equation.

The variation of a humorous essay (following) has been cited by economics professors, financial columnists, and others at regular intervals since at least 1991. It has been attributed to several different distinguished personalities to the point Snopes finally looked into it and inquired of the people cited as authors. So far all have denied writing the piece though several have used it in the classroom or in the newspaper or whatever.

As yet nobody has presumed to try to discredit the thesis of it.

Here's the version, pretty close to being revised to reflect the current tax code, that I ran across this week:

THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED AT THE BAR

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from every body's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

The poorer beer drinkers wind up being worse off. Or of course they could run a tab until the bar runs out of money and can't resupply for anybody. And then.....no more beer.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

 

[JamesMorrison]

Possibly. But I'm guessing those federal grants come with a lot of mandates, restrictions, and bureaucratic oversight.

Yes, some JM redux:

Wikipedia recognizes that: "The dominant role of the federal government in road finance has enabled it to pass laws in areas outside of the powers enumerated in the federal Constitution. By threatening to withhold highway funds, the federal government has been able to force state legislatures to pass a variety of laws”

Of course, some laws passed this way like seat belt and minimum drinking age laws are beneficial but many infringe upon states authority to set their own laws that might better apply locally. The federal mandate for a 55mph speed limit was bad law because it made perfectly law abiding citizens lawbreakers overnight. Many times when the dollars come back from the feds they come with mandates meant to help special interests. Federal mandates for highway fund usage often specify that a 'prevailing wage' (union wages) be paid thereby raising cost and eating up as much as 80 percent of the received federal funds. ( The Road to Privatization: Let States Take Charge of Highway Dollars [Mackinac Center] )
Further, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was recently making noises about how he would like to ban all cell phone use in cars, even 'hands free' units! Fed education funds could be denied, via the Solomon Amendment, to those Universities that deny ROTC access on their campus. The list goes on and on.

JM

Republicans have tried for years to overturn the Davis Bacon Act, ironically, sponsored by Republicans in 1931, which will never happen. Even it's temporary suspension has caused all kinds of protest from potential workers being shut out and "most-favored" contractors thereby allowed to do the hiring at low wages.
Davis?Bacon Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, perhaps the repeal of Obamacare "will never happen" but given the public mood regarding government spending and the investigating of that government spending and the possibility of a conservative government in 2013 adverbs like 'never' might be taken with a grain of salt.

Some questions: Were the protesting workers union? Were those contractors "most favored" so favored because they would do the work for less? I, being a tax payer, would favor them also if that was true.

I remember when the 55 mph law took place and Johnny Carson objecting to it using the same excuses you have. But I also remember him apologizing because he actually timed how long it took for him to drive from his home in Malibu to Burbank at 65 mph, then the following day at 55 mph, and the difference was an extra three minutes. Carson said he thought he could live with that, and thereafter everyone else settled in also. States are extremely lax in ticketing anyone doing 60 or even 70 on straightaways.

Exactly. Your anecdote has beautifully captured my point. One day Carson was a law abiding citizen the next a scofflaw. The Carson experiment, as an informative (in a limited way) excercise was an illegal one. Before the law Carson could have experimented legally but that choice was no longer legally available to him...or anyone else for that matter. However, your Carson story totally ignores the million commoners that must drive long distances to make a living, such as truckers. Since many get paid piece work (by the load, in this case) a 15mph drop in the speed limit may actually decrease the number of loads they could deliver in a certain period of time, thereby decreasing their taxable income and increasing cost of delivery which is then passed on to...

As for cell phone use while driving, for Heaven's sake, we managed to cause enough accidents BEFORE it was cool to talk/text while driving, or even get into a hands-free phone conversation with anyone.

Really? Do you listen to the radio in your car or use a GPS unit? I truely believe most people can drive responsibly and safely without the federal government looking over their shoulders. At best these are state issues.

Well, we all see where this argument is going and I think we will have to agree to disagree here.

JM

 

[JamesMorrison]

Wikipedia recognizes that: "The dominant role of the federal government in road finance has enabled it to pass laws in areas outside of the powers enumerated in the federal Constitution. By threatening to withhold highway funds, the federal government has been able to force state legislatures to pass a variety of laws”

Of course, some laws passed this way like seat belt and minimum drinking age laws are beneficial but many infringe upon states authority to set their own laws that might better apply locally. The federal mandate for a 55mph speed limit was bad law because it made perfectly law abiding citizens lawbreakers overnight. Many times when the dollars come back from the feds they come with mandates meant to help special interests. Federal mandates for highway fund usage often specify that a 'prevailing wage' (union wages) be paid thereby raising cost and eating up as much as 80 percent of the received federal funds. ( The Road to Privatization: Let States Take Charge of Highway Dollars [Mackinac Center] )

Further, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was recently making noises about how he would like to ban all cell phone use in cars, even 'hands free' units! Fed education funds could be denied, via the Solomon Amendment, to those Universities that deny ROTC access on their campus. The list goes on and on.
JM

While some of this might be seen as non sequitur re poverty issues, federal mandates re wages, benefits, hiring practices etc. certainly are not unrelated to the "War on Poverty."

I wonder how many people are poor due to federal dickering with wages, benefits, hiring practices alone? Certainly environmental regulations, fees, restrictions, OSHA mandates, etc. all play a part in all that. And of course you can never ignore tax structures in the equation.

The variation of a humorous essay (following) has been cited by economics professors, financial columnists, and others at regular intervals since at least 1991. It has been attributed to several different distinguished personalities to the point Snopes finally looked into it and inquired of the people cited as authors. So far all have denied writing the piece though several have used it in the classroom or in the newspaper or whatever.

As yet nobody has presumed to try to discredit the thesis of it.

Here's the version, pretty close to being revised to reflect the current tax code, that I ran across this week:

THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED AT THE BAR

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from every body's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Or of course they could run a tab until the bar runs out of money and can't resupply for anybody. And then.....no more beer.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

No problem, we can just have the federal government mandate beer distributers supply the beer at cost (the fed would just pass a law to subsidize the distributers' profit. Why not? After all, it subsidizes ethanol for fuel...same stuff same difference). Of course a simpler way would be just to have Obama's Supremes find a right to consume alcohol in the Constitution so we could all...

Yes. The top 1% of earners are responsible for 40% of tax revenues, the top 5% for 60% of those same revenues. I think that if the progressives got their wish and the wealthy (along with everyone else) actually paid 'their fair share of taxes' those such as PBS, Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment for the Arts would already be, justifiably, on their own.

JM

 

[signelect]

We can not spend our way out of poverty, it comes from education and we can't spend our way to better education. The poor really do have an uphill battle because it require some guidance to find the way out and if your family and friends do know the way who will teach you. This is not an answer just a statement of fact as I see it.

 

[Foxfyre]

We can not spend our way out of poverty, it comes from education and we can't spend our way to better education. The poor really do have an uphill battle because it require some guidance to find the way out and if your family and friends do know the way who will teach you. This is not an answer just a statement of fact as I see it.

So maybe its time to reevaluate our policies and programs that are destroying the inner city families, most especially black families, that encourage single parenthood, that create intractable unemployment and a dependency that makes it very difficult for many to break free. Maybe it is time to make people less comfortable in poverty and show them how to change the patterns that perpetuate it.

I keep coming back to this Letter to the Editor which of course is extreme but the principles embodied in it are so critical to breaking the cycle of poverty:

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of welfare cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese, and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza ...... get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. We’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings ..... get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime, and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360 .... get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”

Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before you say this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago when taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

The highlighted paragraphs to me are the money paragraphs of how we need to change our thinking about helping the poor so that the poor will change their thinking and choose to do something about it.

I would add a final paragraph. If we are going to provide you with food, clothes, special ed, and transportation to school, you will earn a valid highschool diploma or get your G.E.D. or be Age 21, whichever comes first, before you are eligible to get an unrestricted driver's license or vote. (Actually I would like that concept to be applied to everybody whether rich or poor.)

 

[JamesMorrison]

Well, as many have said, wise government contemplating solutions to its society’s problems would, at first, determine whether it can realistically attempt to do so and then, given recognition of a Murphy’s Law application towards unintended consequences, whether it should. This could be, if you will, a Madison's Razor (Hat tip to Occam here, of course) made elementary by a literal interpretation of the Constitution. So the question must be posed: Is it really the responsibility of government to actively ‘eliminate’ poverty? As you might guess, conservatives would be hard pressed to answer in the affirmative.

But then the hew and cry becomes “what about the children?” (No involvement of either Chinese Presidents or lachrymose House Speakers here) This lament can hardly be ignored; especially when we recognize that poverty has a long lasting effect stretching for generations on both those children and society itself.

Robert Rector, a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, in his testimony to the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee on 25 September 2008, gives us a general view of Poverty in America on a number of areas. The testimony can be found here: Understanding and Reducing Poverty in America | The Heritage Foundation
Rector's observations on U.S. Poverty vs. other nation’s and the U.S.’s importation of poverty are quite interesting but his points (#5 and #6) about the causes of child poverty in the U.S. are more germane to our point here.

Interestingly, many posters here have made some observations regarding the Welfare system (AFDC, TANF, etc) that they feel, if changed, would bring a more hopeful system to rectify the problem of child poverty. Rector has work product that validates those observations.

To wit, Rector, back in May of 2001, along with two others, conducted a study that investigated a number of variables that affected the probability that a child would be in poverty. This study’s dependent variable was, therefore, the amount of time a child was likely to spend in poverty, as defined by government metrics, affected by a number of independent variables such as percentage of time the child spent on AFDC and in a single parent family environment, among others. Importantly the study also examined whether there was a race component to poverty (Black children vs. White children). The study, Understanding Differences in Black and White Child Poverty Rates is found here:

Understanding Differences in Black and White Child Poverty Rates | The Heritage Foundation

The study used data from the NLSY (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) produced by the U.S. Department of Labor. The section on the Description of Sample and Variables has the population details of this 2 decade long study. PDF printable version is here: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2001/pdf/cda01-04.pdf

Its findings are:

• The major underlying factors producing
child poverty in the United States are welfare
dependence and single parenthood.

• Race per se is not a factor in producing
child poverty; race alone does not directly
increase or decrease the probability that a
child will be poor.

• When a black child is compared with a
white child raised in identical circumstances,
both children will have the same
probability of living in poverty.

• Similarly, when whites with high levels of
single parenthood and welfare dependence
(matching those typical in the black
community) are compared to blacks, the
poverty rates for both groups are nearly
identical.

• Black American children are more likely
to live in poverty than are white children,
primarily because black children are far more likely to live in single-parent families and
to be on welfare.

Additionally the chart(#2) titled Relative Importance of Variables in Producing Child Poverty Brings to life those variables and whether they tend to increase or decrease a child’s time in poverty.

So, if government is to be used to decrease a child’s time in poverty, said government should, at least:

1) Decrease the child's time on welfare (see PDF text on page 4 entitled Regression Analysis especially paragraphs 3-6)

2) Decrease the child's time in a single parent family with incentives for marriage.

The Study also addresses and, successfully, rejects the question of discrimination
towards employment and income regarding both black mother/father vs. white parents as explanatory regarding child poverty. It also points out (but has no clear causative explanation of) the paradox of increased black male employment compensation (since 1940) concurrent with a decrease in black male participation in child rearing via marriage (See section Poverty and Racial Discrimination PDF pg 11 and 13)

JM

 

[logical4u]

What about poor parents that can't get an abortion or birth control? People aren't going to stop having sex because they are poor. Thats just an absurd thought. For these people that want government out of their lives sure like to make government get into other people's lifes.

Nothing they do is any of your business. But I did find it funny that the rate of poverty decreased under democratic presidents and rose with republicans.

Aren't the poverty (along with unemployment) rates rising with this president?

 

[Foxfyre]

What about poor parents that can't get an abortion or birth control? People aren't going to stop having sex because they are poor. Thats just an absurd thought. For these people that want government out of their lives sure like to make government get into other people's lifes.

Nothing they do is any of your business. But I did find it funny that the rate of poverty decreased under democratic presidents and rose with republicans.

Aren't the poverty (along with unemployment) rates rising with this president?

If the poor can't get an abortion or birth control, they should take a vow of chastity or prepare to give up the baby at birth for they sure as hell can't afford to provide a child with even the most basic necessities of life. That may sound harsh, but unless we start taking that position, we doom more and more children to crushing poverty, neglect, abuse, and absysmal environment. It FEELS compassionate to take care of poor parents and their kids, but when the method used to do that results in generations living in poverty, intractable unemployment, bullets flying in the night, roaches and rats in the tenements, and kids who are far more likely to wind up running with gangs than get an education, that is NOT compassion.

It is time to rethink what we are doing.

 

[FactFinder]

"Civics Lesson 101: The War on Poverty"

Civics lesson 101 my ass. There has been no war on poverty. There has only been self feeding bureacracies created to give the illusion of a war on poverty. A true war on poverty would backup regulations against oppression of the poor by the powers that be. As long as those powers are feeding the election coffers and other sundry items of the silver spoon types it is all a charade and a sad and evil joke.

Exhibit 1:

Speculation or otherwise known as every excuse possible (believable or not) to raise the price of oil and the rest of the world be damned. This in spite of record levels of supply.

 

[Foxfyre]

"Civics Lesson 101: The War on Poverty"

Civics lesson 101 my ass. There has been no war on poverty. There has only been self feeding bureacracies created to give the illusion of a war on poverty. A true war on poverty would backup regulations against oppression of the poor by the powers that be. As long as those powers are feeding the election coffers and other sundry items of the silver spoon types it is all a charade and a sad and evil joke.

Exhibit 1:

Speculation or otherwise known as every excuse possible (believable or not) to raise the price of oil and the rest of the world be damned. This in spite of record levels of supply.

I agree there has been no war on poverty and what has been passed off as one has been largely to increase the power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes of the legislators and bureaucrats who initiate and administer them. Some of the folks actually on the front lines do as well as they can and give their best, but the system itself ensures that nothing they do will have much of a lasting impact on most.

James in his somewhat lengthy posts has essentially nailed the core problem. When you destroy the family and weaken marriage or make it appear unnecessary, you are dooming a lot of kids to unrelenting poverty. The single most effective thing we could do to eliminate a lot of poverty would be to again make traditional marriage the norm and encourage it.

 

[chanel]

Yes foxfyre. Mr. Morrison's post was spot on. I've been making that argument for years.

While schools are expected to solve every single social problem under the sun, from obesity to cyberbullying, there is nary a mention of schools promoting marriage. I imagine many abstinence programs stress that, but we've seen the hostility towards those. Think of all the social ills that could be avoided if children had responsible parents.

As the author stated in my previous post, "Morality has become the new scarlet letter".

 

[editec]

This nation's war on poverty has bascially morphed into a war on the poor and middle class.

And this nation is winning that war, too.

Soon there will be no middle class to speak of which appears to be the goal of this war.

 

[JakeStarkey]

It FEELS compassionate to take care of poor parents and their kids, but when the method used to do that results in generations living in poverty, intractable unemployment, bullets flying in the night, roaches and rats in the tenements, and kids who are far more likely to wind up running with gangs than get an education, that is NOT compassion.

Give us the % of Americans in poverty in 1960 and give us the % in poverty in 2010. If you are stating poverty still exists, you are correct. The Reaganites' war against the poor and middle classes have prevented that % from dropping even more.

 

[Foxfyre]

Yes foxfyre. Mr. Morrison's post was spot on. I've been making that argument for years.

While schools are expected to solve every single social problem under the sun, from obesity to cyberbullying, there is nary a mention of schools promoting marriage. I imagine many abstinence programs stress that, but we've seen the hostility towards those. Think of all the social ills that could be avoided if children had responsible parents.

As the author stated in my previous post, "Morality has become the new scarlet letter".

Indeed. There will always be anecdotal exceptions of course--even all married people were never cut out to be good parents--but the whole concept of the General Welfare is that which benefits all or maximizes the greater good.

I'm working from memory here but I'm pretty sure there is reliable data to support:

Children with a mother and father in the home:

1) Are far less likely to live in poverty as children.
2) Are far more likely to graduate highschool; also go on to college. (And do their homework. )
3) Are far less likely to have a substance abuse problem or get into trouble with the law.
4) Are far less likely to join a gang or make poor choices of friends/companions.
5) Are far more likely to have a reasonable sense of morality and expect to be productive members of society.
6) Are far more likely to become productive members of society.
7) Are far less likely to produce children who will grow up in poverty.\
8) Are less likely to die young.

The above applies to all races, religions, ethnic groups and, when traditional marriages are formed, almost all disparity in income noted in racial or ethnic groups is erased.

Again we're looking at the big picture here. This does not mean that there won't be bad parents within a traditional marriage. There are. But they are rare compared with the total picture. This doesn't mean that a single parent can't do a great and successful job raising their kids. Many do, even among the poor. But they have a much more difficult time of it than when the process of raising a family is shared by Mom and Dad instead of one alone.

 

[chanel]

Politicialchic posted this here: http://www.usmessageboard.com/3029921-post18.html

"Here is the lottery ticket that single mothers are handing their innocent children by choosing to raise them without fathers: Controlling for socioeconomic status, race, and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced. A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.

Various studies have come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, children from single-parent families account for 63 percent of all youth suicides, 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies, 71 percent of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse, 80 percent of all prison inmates, and 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children.

A study cited in the Village Voice produced similar numbers. It found that children brought up in single-mother homes 'are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.' Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts.

....Many of these studies, for example, are from the 1990s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under eighteen were being raised in one-parent homes (mother or father), and 71 percent were being raised in two-parent homes. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the United States were illegitimate. That's a lot of social problems coming.

...Imagine an America with 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, 70 percent fewer teenage births, 63 to 70 percent fewer teenage suicides, and 70 percent to 90 percent fewer runaways and you will appreciate what the sainted single mothers have accomplished." -- P.37-38

"But Americans used to be able to care about the circumstances of their children's births: The illegitimacy rate has gone up by more than 300 percent since 1970. Moreover, even assuming that, sometime around the year of 1969, the entire human race lost the ability to defer gratification, there's still the wholly volitional decision not to give the baby up for adoption.

"A 2008 study led by Georgia State University economist Benjamin Scafidi found that single mothers -- unwed or divorced -- cost the US taxpayer $112 billion every year."

 

[JakeStarkey]

Then let's turn them into taxpayers on the front end instead of supporting them on the back end.

 

[JamesMorrison]

While schools are expected to solve every single social problem under the sun, from obesity to cyberbullying, there is nary a mention of schools promoting marriage. I imagine many abstinence programs stress that, but we've seen the hostility towards those. Think of all the social ills that could be avoided if children had responsible parents.

As the author stated in my previous post, "Morality has become the new scarlet letter".

As to the schools: guess what the third most important variable in producing child poverty was (after time on AFDC[51.1%] and time in single parent home[22.7%])? It was the math and verbal skills of the mother at 14.4% (negative effect here--the better these skills the less chance the child would be in poverty, the mother's age at the birth of her first child at 5.6% is the other having a decreasing effect on poverty).

So, we need to seriously address both the teacher's union problem (along with the public sector unions overall stranglehold over local and state governments ) and the atmosphere in the public schools that, if we are lucky, addresses the successful education of our children as a mere afterthought. Therefore, we must seriously attempt to separate those students who want to learn from those who merely live to disrupt the classroom--a major problem in urban environments. Perhaps we can combine the two problems for a quick solution.

When liberals proposed, again, to throw more money at the problem in the NYC public school system, some suggested that we first fire those teachers that are so bad that they are not allowed to teach but union rules keep on the payroll as long as they put in their hours. Where they wile away those hours are called "Rubber Rooms". So let's fire those bad teachers and put those children, who are not seriously interested in educating themselves, in the "Rubber Rooms". Any variation of this that allows those children, so interested, to learn and advance themselves would be welcome.

JM

 

[chanel]

"No Wedding; No Womb" Author : Christelyn Karazin

For those of you who have ever questioned my motives for trying to fight this CANCER of out-of-wedlock births in our community, take a look at this video. One of those girls is ME. The baby is MY DAUGHTER.

 

[Foxfyre]

The marriage laws in the USA in all 50 states are designed to protect the children:

1) They help define clear lines of property rights and inheritance.
2) They define clear factors of genetics in certain inheritable traits and diseases
3) They protect children in many important ways by prohibiting incest, identifying transmittable diseases, and establishing reasonable age limits to help prevent sexual exploitation of the young.
4) They provide automatic custody and assign automatic 'power of attorney' to the parents of the child which can be critical in life threatening situations.
5) A child with a loving mother and father in the home will never become a pawn of the court with people squabbling over what will become of him or her.

Other social factors associated with stable marriages are peaceful neighborhoods with better schools, churches, and safer streets.

And study after study has shown that while again, there will be exceptions, children benefit emotionally and intellectually with a loving mother and father in the home:

Findings overwhelmingly support that the best environment to raise children is in a two-parent family, where the parents are married. Of course not every two-parent family is ideal, and sometimes children are better off in a single parent home, but this is the exception not the rule.

Professor Paul Amato of Pennsylvania State University recently published his findings, of his investigation of numerous research studies, in an article titled, "The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation."

He wanted to know the differences between children raised in two-parent households versus one-parent households. He found that children who grow up in households with two continuously married parents are less likely to experience a wide range of problems.

Children from single parent families have "more behavioral problems, more emotional problems, and lower levels of school engagement (that is, caring about school and doing homework)."

The reasons are simple children who grow up in stable two-parent families have a higher standard of living. Hence they "receive more effective parenting, experience more cooperative co-parenting, are emotionally closer to both parents, and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances."

Studies also revealed similar findings for children of divorced parents and cohabitating parents. The dissolution of marriage, and uncertainty of cohabitation are reflected in the child's behavior and emotional state.

Even though divorce is now common, and 50% of marriages will end in divorce, children of divorced parents "continued to have lower average levels of cognitive, social, and emotional well-being."

The effects of divorce continue into adulthood where they often attain "lower socioeconomic attainment", as well as experience "lower psychological well-being, poorer marital quality, and an elevated risk of seeing their own marriage end in divorce."

This does not mean that a parent should stay in an abusive relationship just so their children do not suffer the effects of divorce. Children whose parents do not have a stable marriage are better off in a single parent family.
Children Benefit from Two-Parent Families - Parents - Families.com

Wouldn't all this suggest that one of our very first priorities should be national policy that encourages and supports the traditional famiy instead of continuing to promote government policies that have done anything but that?

 

[JakeStarkey]

The traditional family model has changed significantly and will continue to change. America will not be going back to the model up to the 1950s. Thus, let's turn single parents into taxpayers on the front end instead of supporting them on the back end.