The 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s famous declaration of a ‘War on Poverty’ in his 1964 State of the Union address has unleashed a torrent of commentary. One of the best is by Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation in the Wall Street Journal. And as is so often the case with honest commentators, Rector observes that economic poverty often follows familial and cultural poverty. As the family goes, so goes the economic fortunes of those who are adversely affected by marital and family break-up, illegitimacy, and divorce. As Rector points out, in the 1960’s only 6 percent of children in the United States were born out of wedlock. Today 41 percent of all children in the U.S. are born out of wedlock. These children (and their single mothers) are roughly eight to nine times more likely to live in poverty than children from intact families.
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