Reducing Poverty
Does Marriage Really Help?
By Daniel Muniz

To reduce poverty in general and child poverty in particular, the mantra from social conservatives is for unwed mothers to marry the fathers of their children. Robert Rector, a Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation in his article, How Poor Are America's Poor, explains the following:

The decline in marriage is the second major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. Increasing marriage would substantially reduce child poverty: If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty.

…Overall, the welfare system continues to encourage idle dependence rather than work and to reward single parenthood while penalizing marriage.

If child poverty is to be reduced, welfare must be transformed. Able-bodied parents must be required to work or prepare for work, and the welfare system should encourage rather than penalize marriage.

That is a good insight to the issue. And as someone who was born in the barrio by parents who primarily spoke Spanish, I can say that a nuclear family was the essential ingredient in getting out of poverty. My brother and sister and myself each earned college degrees and have professional careers. My mom only had a second grade education but my dad put her through college as a middle aged mother in which she earned two degrees. None of this could have ever been accomplished without a strong marital bond.

But the problem I have with the approach of certain social conservatives is that the scope of this solution is far too limited and a bit naïve. And it is not that I discount the value of marriage especially in its relationship to poverty. I of all people can affirm that marriage is absolutely vital in escaping poverty. The beef I have is that it is not as easy or as simplistic as some conservatives seem to think it is.

For example, how can this solution be reconciled with a woman who has four or five children from four or five different men? Is she going to marry all of the fathers at the same time?

And likewise, how is a man who has fathered four or five children from four or five different women going to put all the mothers under one roof?

Teachers who teach at “dropout factories” see this sort of thing all the time. They have often had four or five siblings go through their classrooms that come from the same mother but each having a different father.

But worse, these teachers see vicious cycles that repeat themselves.

One teacher recounted to me about a cheerleader in her classroom who refused to turn in any of her assignments. The student claimed that she had a part time job that was more important than school because her mother was a single mom. And of course, the parent wasn’t of any help in getting this kid to turn stuff in. But tragically, the young girl got pregnant. Ironically, all the hardship that she so bitterly complained about, she merely ended up becoming an active participant in it. Sadly, it is a cycle that doesn’t end; it just regenerates itself in the next generation.

And that’s just sex. Now what about drugs, especially since sex and drugs seem to go hand in hand together?

If a child has a parent who is a heavy drinker or a serious drug user, then that is going to have a severe impact.

Next is the work ethic. Social conservatives rightly point out the need for able bodied poor people to get a job, any job. There is a huge value of learning the responsibility of having to be at work on time and applying the effort to it.

Although marriage is a vital component in getting out of poverty, it is still only one component.

As a kid in the barrio, I was fortunate to have a mother and father who were hard workers (in addition to a full time job, my dad always had some kind of part time job). They never had problems with the law and I never saw them drunk. And as kids, we weren’t allowed to skip out of school or go to wild parties or stay out at all hours of the night. My parents established strict rules and boundaries that we had to adhere to.

And even though Spanish was the language primarily spoken at home, we had to do all of our homework, turn in assignments, and study for tests. That was something my parents hounded us on all the way through twelfth grade.

My parents were eventually able to get out of the barrio and into a big house in the suburbs and live a middle class lifestyle. They had the right ingredients to escape poverty but as I stated before, marriage was only one component of that escape.

Sadly, too many impoverished people lack all the necessary ingredients that are part of the recipe for success. There is a wide spectrum of cultural issues that need to be addressed and many conservatives do a good job of pointing them out. Conversely, liberals are just too embarrassed to talk about poor people having personal responsibility, making good decisions and exercising sound judgment.

Overall, I just feel that a lot of the poor will never leave poverty until they have a firm grasp of some of the harsh realities of life. Marriage is a good start but it is only one step in the right direction.

Any opinions or views expressed herein belong solely to the author and does not represent any employer, organization, political party, governmental agency, or any other entity and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site owner or its participants.