SANTORUM: Standing up for marriage and families - Washington Times

from the Washington Times:
SANTORUM: Standing up for marriage and families - Washington Times:

Social science provides overwhelming evidence of the benefits of marriage to children and society. In what other area of public policy would government be neutral when the benefits are so overwhelming? We know work and marriage are antidotes to poverty......

A 2009 Brookings Institution study reported that if Americans do the following three things, they are much less likely to live in poverty: work, graduate from high school and wait to have children until they are married.

Do all three, and you will have just a 2 percent chance of living in poverty and a 74 percent likelihood of being middle income (defined as an annual family income of $50,000 or more).

Today, more than 25 million American children, including 64 percent of black children and 36 percent of Hispanic children, live in father-absent homes. In 1964, when the federal government launched its war on poverty, 6.8 percent of births nationally were to single mothers. 

Research tells us that low-income children without a father at home are five times more likely to remain poor. In 2010, 31.6 percent of households headed by single women were poor, while 6.2 percent of married-couple households lived in poverty. 

When marriage is not an option, fathers need to step up, be courageous and be active in the lives of their sons and daughters. Children desperately want and need this.....Our nation’s first economy is the family. For America to be strong, we must have strong families.

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