The Family and Poverty

How’s this for a mind-blowing statistic: I just read in the Economist (so it must be a conservative conspiracy, right?) that ”Americans who finish high school, work full-time and wait until they are 21 and married before they have children have only a 2% chance of being poor.” Holy shit, right? That can’t possibly be true. Two percent?! I mean seriously, if you care about solving poverty, this statistic should blow you away.

 Especially because, as the Economist points out, all three are relatively simple criteria. Right? I mean, none of them requires your parents to be wealthy. None requires you to be of a certain gender, or race, or to be born in a nice neighborhood. Anyone can finish High School. It may be hard to get the job you want, but getting a full-time job of any kind isn’t impossible. Ok, I know, the economy sucks. Especially for us young people. But unless you insist on only taking the jobs that you want, that advance the career you want, getting a full-time job isn’t that hard. And anyone can wait until they are 21 and married before having kids. 

If you do all three of those relatively simple things, you are almost guaranteed not to be poor. Which means that nearly all of America’s poor do not satisfy these three criteria. I was absolutely floored when I read that. Because these three statistics point out the root causes of poverty in America. They have to, don’t they? 

Let’s look at these three stats again a little more carefully. The first is a failure of education. There is absolutely no excuse for kids to be failing High School. Short of having a serious brain disability such as downs syndrome, every single American teenager is fully capable of succeeding in High School academically. Let’s be honest – High School in the US is not exactly demanding.  Just ask the South Koreans – compared to their schools, US High Schools are a walk in the park.

Yet many are not graduating. In fact, only 57% of Black students in the class of 2008 graduated (I mention Blacks in particular because the Economist article bemoaned how Blacks in America are falling farther behind, and thus provided additional statistics on Blacks. Also, this week is the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s speech). That is an atrocious statistic. So about half of Blacks are already out of the running to make it in the 98% not poor category. 

The second statistic indicates a dual failure of education and the economy. The job market, especially for young people, is still really tough. The economy is out of recession, but it doesn’t really feel like it, the way the unemployment rate has stayed high – and that disguises millions of Americans who have given up on looking for a job or are on permanent “disability” because the jobs they qualify for no longer exist in America. Additionally, we’re not educating our young people to have the skills to compete in a rapidly changing labor market. 

As painful as it is for many to hear this, the third and final statistic is, pure and simple, a failure of old fashioned values and the family. Simply put, if you don’t have a baby before 21 and you get married, you qualify for the magic group of Americans that aren’t poor. Other statistics support this assertion: the Economist also reports that “fewer than 30% of children in the poorest third of white America live with both parents by the time their mother turns 40. Among the most affluent fifth, around 90% of children live in a household with both parents. Marriage has become a fault-line dividing American classes.”

When you consider that today 72% of Black children are born out of wedlock, you’re looking at nearly three-quarters of Blacks are already out of the running for candidacy in the “golden group”.

The importance of marriage and family are heightened further when you consider that the single most important statistical indicator of a child’s academic success is the level of education of the child’s mother – indicating that parental involvement, instilling the need for academic excellence and following up actively on a child’s progress, is extremely important. So the first issue – a failure of education – is really a family issue in disguise.

The gist of all this is: 

1.       1. We have identified three issues that are near-perfect predictors of non-poverty – and therefore provide powerful insight into poverty

2.       2. Of those three issues, two are directly linked to marriage and family. If you consider that Black unemployment is only 14.4% (14.4% of Blacks fail to qualify for the “golden group” by virtue of category 2), compared with 43% who fail to graduate High School and 72% that fail to wait till 21 and get married before having kids, these two marriage-related factors are the most important of the three.

Now, let me be clear on one thing: I hate it as much as anyone else when right-wing conservatives preach “family values” from their high horses; especially when what they really mean is “homosexuals are destroying America.” But there is simply no denying the facts: the family is the strongest guarantee against poverty. Strong families are – by far – the most potent antidote to poverty in America. 

The problem is that I’m not sure that the federal government can do much in terms of policy to promote strong families. But that’s clearly where the secret to conquering poverty lies.