A couple days ago, I once again flaunted my ignorance in proclaiming I knew of no updates on statistics for single moms on welfare. Little did I know, sitting on everybody’s coffee table in the latest issue of Business North Carolina, was a commentary by the JLF’s own John Hood with the dope and a local perspective.
Before proceeding, I shall add I came across the article while at the auto shop. I was taking care of maintenance deferred in the interest of paying my taxes on time. I only mention that because government’s whining that it needs more money from the public sector so it won’t have to defer its maintenance plays into the story.
Hood informs us that more than 40% of babies now born in the great State of North Carolina have no legal daddy. That is twice the number from a decade ago. Hood argues that two parents, each earning a modest $25,000 in annual wages, can support multiple children just fine; but if they split, the generous government will never give them so much. That is the case even though social welfare spending in the state has increased more than threefold over the last generation or so, and government spending in general has doubled.
Hood refers to work done at the Brookings Institution that concludes “almost all the increase in child poverty since the 1970s is attributable to rising out-of-wedlock births.” He says if kids finish high school, work fulltime, wait until they’re married to have children, and avoid addiction, their chances of being “in poverty” for any appreciable duration is less than 2%. If they blow all three goals, their chances rise almost to 80%.
