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A few years ago, my local newspaper had an article about children in the United States who live in poverty.
Accompanying the article was a graph showing the percentage of children in the United States who were living in poverty from 1960 to 1992.
The graph looks just like the letter "V."
From 1960 to 1970, childhood poverty fell rapidly, going from 27 percent to 15 percent.
But in 1970, the graph takes a sharp turn.
In 1970, the vertex of the letter "V" appears in the graph.
In 1970, childhood poverty rates stopped falling, and started to rise.
By 1992, childhood poverty rates had reached 22 percent.
Before 1970, childhood poverty rates were falling rapidly.
After 1970, childhood poverty rates were rising.
Some event must have happened to cause this change.
What was this event?
What caused this change?
Why did childhood poverty rates stop falling, and then start to rise?
The reason that childhood poverty rates stopped falling in 1970, and then started to rise, is because during the mid 1960s, the federal government launched its so-called "War on Poverty."
When the government started paying unwed teenagers and unwed women to have babies, illegitimacy rates skyrocketed.
Out of wedlock births are much more common today than they were several decades ago. The Cato Institute has done very thorough research on this topic.
The following quote comes from the following website:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n1-1.html
"Out-of-Wedlock Births
Out-of-Wedlock births are the most rapidly increasing social pathology. On a national basis (in 1991), 29.2 percent of births were to single mothers, with a range from 14.3 percent in Utah to 65.9 percent in the District of Columbia. Since 1960, the illegitimacy rate has increased from 2.3 percent to 22 percent for whites and from 21.4 percent to 68 percent for blacks. A substantial part of the current generation of inner city young people has grown up without a father, a contributor to the increase in violent crime and the decline in school performance as well as to some of the pathologies addressed in this study."
In recent decades, there have been massive increases in the rates of illegitimate births. According to the above study, since 1960, the percentage of white babies born out of wedlock has been MULTIPLIED BY A FACTOR OF MORE THAN NINE. During the same time period, the percentage of black babies born out of wedlock has MORE THAN TRIPLIED.
The percentage of babies born out of wedlock has increased tremendously in recent decades.
Some people mistakenly believe that the single biggest factor affecting whether or not a child grows up in poverty is the skin color of that child. These beliefs come from false assumptions and stereotyping.
In reality, the single biggest factor affecting whether or not a child grows up in poverty is THE BEHAVIOR OF THE CHILD'S PARENTS.
If a man and a woman graduate from high school, get jobs, get married, have a baby, and stay married, then that baby's chance of growing up in poverty is very SMALL. This holds true for people of ALL SKIN COLORS.
Likewise, if two teenagers have sex, make a baby, drop out of high school, don't get married, don't get jobs, and end up on welfare, then that baby's chance of growing up in poverty is very BIG. This also holds true for people of ALL SKIN COLORS.
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