Poverty, American style: Cars, TVs, three-bedroom homes

Human Events, Oct 13, 2003 by Rector, Robert

Not having a dad around is another reliable pathway down into poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes. Each year an additional 1.3 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.

While work and marriage are steady ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as Food Stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, remaining poverty would drop quickly.

Still, in a sense, the poor will always be with us. The liberal grievance industry needs an abundant supply of apparent victims to keep its motors running. Without a permanent victim class, liberals cannot survive. Thus, in liberal imagination and rhetoric, the microwave must always be bare.

Mr. Rector is a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.