ABOUT POVERTY

“[W]hen you consider why true poverty exists, you realize it’s not simply a matter of pouring more money into this or that government program. ‘There are two main reasons that American children are poor,’ [Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation] writes. ‘Their parents don’t work much, and fathers are absent from the home.’ The typical poor family with children is supported by only 16 hours of work per week. If work in this family were raised to 40 hours per week, he says, nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty. As for absent fathers: Nearly two out of every three poor children live in single-parent homes. And each year, another 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. ‘If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty,’ Rector writes. But don’t hold your breath waiting for one of the presidential hopefuls to float that solution.”

—Rebecca Hagelin