Marriage and Poverty

How do we help people stay out of poverty?

Help them wait until marriage to have children and help them stay married. If we really care about children we will learn how to help their parents in long-term solutions.

Instead of throwing money at consequences, we need to look at the root causes to our culture's greatest issues.

The Heritage Foundation released a report, "Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty," on how the poverty rate relates to marriage and single-parent childbirth. They report:
 Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.

Marriage can reduce the probability of a child living in poverty by 82%. The rate of children born to married parents has declined dramatically in the last 50 years. Now, 4 of 10 children born in America have unmarried parents. Some of those parents will remain unmarried the whole life of the child. Most will marry someone other than the child's other parent, putting the child into a stepfamily immediately.

As people of faith, we can personally do everything possible to make sure that we are married and stay married if we are going to have children. Also, that we do whatever we can to help others to stay married.

We can wait for the government to address the root issues of the problem, which they are starting to do. The government is already spending millions each year to deal with the consequences of this problem.

Or we can help families in our communities strengthen their marriages and teach their children to wait for marriage to have their children.

Let us join together to strengthen marriages and to help children out of poverty.