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Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Out-of-wedlock births have to be discussed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Analyze this, the first sentence of an account of a Michael Bloomberg speech to the National Press Club last week, and then take the quiz on why notable public opinion leaders are reluctant to weigh in on the sensitive question of fathers, marriage and child poverty:
“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a divorced, billionaire dad, said Tuesday that unwed fathers increase poverty and the government should take steps to get them back with their families.”
A divorced, billionaire dad. Meaning what? A gratuitous insertion in a wire service account, it’s clearly intended to convey a message. But what? That because Bloomberg is divorced, he lacks moral authority to urge that tax laws be amended to entice the absentee male back into children’s lives? That because Bloomberg is rich, he lacks legitimacy to speak of poverty?
The gratuitous reference to his wealth and marital status — both matters unrelated to the issue he addressed or content of his remarks — are noteworthy in that they are warnings to public figures to avoid topics where they risk being accused of hypocrisy. Topics like the epidemic of births to unmarried women and the disadvantage and poverty that results.
Bloomberg wasn’t approaching the hot-button issue at the heart of the problem he addressed. He was, instead, proposing financial incentives to buy men back into their children’s lives, including “a substantial expansion and reform” of the earned income tax credit.
“Why should we expect young mothers to work and not young fathers?” he asked, a reference to the 1996 welfare reform law that, with the EITC, “led millions of people into the labor market, where they attained the dignity of work and a chance to rise out of poverty.” With that, he said, the welfare caseload in New York City had dropped by a third over the past five years.
“Right now,” he continued, “fathers are missing from our strategy to drive down the poverty rate. The gains that we’ve made over the past 10 years have been fueled by mothers. … If we are going to achieve another round of substantial gains … we have to do more to connect fathers to jobs and to their families. We have to increase the rewards for work. …”
Among the changes he suggested is eliminating the EITC “marriage penalty” for families with and without children. “Marriage increase a family’s chances of rising out of poverty — why would government discourage it? It shouldn’t. … The EITC should be a catalyst for fathers to fulfill their obligations as responsible spouses, parents and citizens.”
No hot-button cultural rhetoric there. Dry. Nuts-and-bolts.
To the extent that influential voices are dissuaded from addressing vital issues, such as the consequences of the missing father, because they themselves aren’t poor or have failed marriages, everybody loses. Imagine the treatment had Bloomberg chosen to talk about the real dynamic driving poverty, the creation of babies without bothering to marry.
Bloomberg started his conversation with the usual pabulum about education as “one of the best ways to fight poverty.” It is of course true. No question. But when 69.3 percent of black children, 46.4 of Hispanic and 24.5 of white children are born to unmarried women, the die is cast long before the first schoolteacher enters their lives. And even then, it’s fantasy land to believe any public school system anywhere in America can backfill the hours of guidance and teaching the walkaway father might have provided.
When the War on Poverty was first launched in 1964, single women headed 30 percent of the poor families with children. Today it’s double that. The Brookings Institution, to which Bloomberg delivered the same speech, noted in 2002 that in 2000, 40 percent of the children in female-headed families were poor, compared to 8 percent of the children in married families. Only 20 percent of children in families with incomes of less than $15.000 a year live with both parents.
Marriage reduces poverty. Now, because we’re reached the tipping point where the crisis of out-of-wedlock births is so deeply rooted, few public figures who wish to cultivate a following dare mention it. So they walk around it and talk around it.
But sooner or later, leaders rich and poor, married and divorced, do have to start the conversation. And we have to encourage them.
• Jim Wooten is associate editor of the editorial page. His column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
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