Promise of Reducing Poverty May Be Found Inside Marriage Vows
Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times, 10/6/1997
Among married families in which at least one partner works full time, year–round, no matter how menial the job, poverty has almost disappeared: Just 1.8% of those families—less than 1 in 50—are poor. In stark contrast, nearly one–third of families headed by a single woman are poor; so are almost 1 in 7 families headed by a single man. “In the deepest sense, these numbers just beautifully illustrate the point that the crisis before us is a lack of family formation,” said David Blankenhorn, president of the centrist Institute for American Values.