“Broken Families Cost Taxpayers”

The Tulsa World reports on a state legislative panel’s hearing yesterday on reducing divorce and births to unwed parents. I know the author isn’t responsible for writing the headline, but the headline editor definitely captured the spirit of the article with the headline “Broken Families Cost Taxpayers.”

So that I don’t bury the lede here, let me just state my complaint up front: in Oklahoma (and in most places), among the most effective ways to draw the public’s scorn is to say something “costs taxpayers.” I remember the report on that Defense Department toilet (which turned out to be an astronaut toilet) costing millions of dollars to procure. “Toilets Cost Taxpayers Millions”, or some variation on that theme, the evening newscasters screamed. And sure enough, the public was appropriately scornful of toilets and the Defense Department. So what happens when you label your story “Broken Families Cost Taxpayers”? You draw scorn upon “broken” families.

Moreover, the headline implies that our concern over “broken” families should be rooted in its cost to taxpayers rather than in compassion for the family members themselves. It’s commonplace now to see economic arguments replace what used to be ethical issues (by which I mean a competing conception of the good), ranging from the President’s urge to “bend the cost curve” on healthcare to organizations like the Partnership for America’s Economic Success (which argues for greater early childhood investments), to the House hearing reported on today.

Finally, the reporter writes, “slightly more than 60 percent of all Oklahoma births that year [2008] were funded by Medicaid.” Now that may be technically true, but the wording implies that births are a sort of government program. We could reduce our appropriations to them and then there’d be fewer births. It’s as if there’s something wrong with a government that supports its children at their most vulnerable.

Now, it can’t be denied that single-parent households are at much greater risk for economic insecurity and, thus, more likely to be eligible for government safety net programs. The reason for that is pretty straightforward: assistance programs are determined by one’s income relative to the federal poverty line. Since FPL is a function of one’s household size, a household of 3 with one earner is going to be deeper in poverty than a household of 4 with two earners.

Certain advocates, mainly social conservatives but from both parties, have identified this fact as “the” root cause of poverty. Their solution: promote marriage, prevent divorce, and reduce births to unwed parents. There’s not really anything wrong with promoting two-parent households, but there’s no clear evidence that it’s the solution. If one-parent households are such a strong cause of poverty, as marriage advocates say, then one would think that skyrocketing divorce rates would at least have some impact on the poverty rate, even given all the other conditions that lead to poverty. In 1960, the poverty rate was 22.2% and the divorce rate was 2.25%. In 2006, the poverty rate was 12.3% and the divorce rate was 9.79%. In other words, while the divorce rate increased 335% between 1960 and 2006, the poverty rate fell by 45%. (U.S. Census Bureau, “Families and Living Arrangements” and “Historical Poverty Tables“)

Further, we have actual data on what causes someone’s entry into poverty. A study published as “Slipping into and out of Poverty: The Dynamics of Spells” found that 11% of all falls into poverty were caused by the transition to a female headed family (i.e. loss of a male earner in the household) and only 10% of rises out of poverty were caused by marriage or remarriage. Is marriage good for families? In most cases, yes. Is it a solution to poverty? Probably not.