<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:24939.wais]
S. Hrg. 109-254
POTENTIAL FOR MARRIAGE DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before a
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SPECIAL HEARING
OCTOBER 6, 2005--WASHINGTON, DC
__________
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__________
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri TOM HARKIN, Iowa
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
CONRAD BURNS, Montana HARRY REID, Nevada
RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HERB KOHL, Wisconsin
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire PATTY MURRAY, Washington
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
LARRY CRAIG, Idaho DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado
J. Keith Kennedy, Staff Director
Terrence E. Sauvain, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi (ex ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia (ex
officio) officio)
Professional Staff
Mary Dietrich
Emily Brunini
Kate Eltrich (Minority)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Opening Statement of Senator Sam Brownback....................... 1
Statement of Eleanor Holmes Norton, Delegate for the District of
Columbia, U.S. House of Representatives........................ 6
Prepared Statement........................................... 11
Statement of Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution,
Washington, DC................................................. 21
Prepared Statement........................................... 24
Statement of Dr. Malcolm Smith, Director of Operations, Center
for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, Baltimore, MD. 32
Prepared Statement........................................... 34
Statement of Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, Assistant Professor of
Sociology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA......... 35
Prepared Statement........................................... 37
Statement of Rev. Thabiti Anyabwile, Assistant Pastor for
Families and Children, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington,
DC............................................................. 40
Prepared Statement........................................... 42
Statement of Colleen Dailey, Executive Director, Capital Area
Asset Building Corporation, Washington, DC..................... 51
Prepared Statement........................................... 53
Statement of George R. Williams, Executive Director, Urban
Father-Child Partnership, National Center for Fathering, Kansas
City, MO....................................................... 55
Prepared Statement........................................... 57
Statement of Curtis Watkins, President, East Capitol Center for
Change, Washington, DC......................................... 58
Prepared Statement........................................... 61
Statement of Winston Graham...................................... 64
Accompanied by Saundra Corley.................................... 64
Prepared Statement of Saundra Corley and Winston Graham.......... 67
Prepared Statement of Senator Wayne Allard....................... 70
Letter From Legal Momentum....................................... 71
Prepared Statement of the Corporation for Enterprise Development. 72
POTENTIAL FOR MARRIAGE DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
----------
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Committee on Appropriations,
Washington DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:32 a.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senator Brownback.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK
Senator Brownback. The hearing will come to order. Good
morning everybody. I'm delighted to have you here. Delegate
Norton, it's always a pleasure to see you, I look forward to
hearing your testimony.
We're convening this hearing to discuss the decline in
marriage and the increase of out of wedlock birth rates in the
District of Columbia. We will discuss ways to promote and
encourage healthy marriage, including the potential for
marriage development accounts which we have proposed in the
fiscal year 2006 D.C. appropriations bill, which I hope we will
be able to pass in the Senate in a couple of weeks.
Every year, almost 57 percent of all babies born in the
District are born to single parents. Nationally, over one-third
of all babies are born to single parents. This compares to only
5.3 percent in 1960. And I have a chart over here to my left,
your right, showing some of these trend lines that have taken
place in the overall birthrates in the United States to single
parents.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Clearly, this is a growing crisis, and it requires our
focused attention. Children who are raised without the nurture
and the care of both parents, can and too often do, suffer in
many ways. Statistics show that children born to single mothers
are seven times more likely to be poor than those born to
married parents. I've got a chart on that as well.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
And 80 percent of long-term child poverty occurs in broken
or never married families. Marriage has an enormous potential
to reduce poverty among couples who are unmarried at the time
of their child's birth. Children born and raised in households
where their mothers and fathers are married tend to be more
financially stable and more emotionally secure.
I do want to state as well, and at the outset of this that
a child can be raised well in a single parent household. Nobody
disagrees with that, and that is certainly accurate. What I'm
pointing out here is the overall statistics of children born in
single parent households bodes poorly, statistically, for that
child.
And if there is anything that we can do to discourage that
setting and encourage a setting where children are born in an
intact family of a mother and a father, that's to the benefit
of the child. Statistics tell a compelling story of the many
positive benefits that accrue to children if they are raised by
their married parents.
For example, children raised in married families are 3
times less likely to repeat a grade in school, 5 times less
likely to have behavioral problems, half as likely to be
depressed, 3 times less likely to use illicit drugs, half as
likely to become sexually active as teenagers, and listen to
this one, 14 times less likely to suffer abuse from their
parents. Again, we have a chart on that particular setting.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Clearly, this is to the overarching benefit of the child.
Certainly and again, I want to repeat this, there are many
single mothers who are heroically and successfully raising
children on their own. They deserve our respect and support.
But it is also indisputable that a father and a mother in a
healthy marriage provide the best environment in which to raise
healthy children.
As a society, we should strive to foster what is the very
best for our children. Although our primary concern is the
benefits that marriage accrues to children, adults also benefit
from marriage. Extensive research shows that married adults
tend to be happier, are more productive on the job, earn more,
have better physical and mental health and live longer than
their unmarried counterparts.
Mothers who are married are half as likely to suffer from
domestic violence as are never married mothers. In addition,
the growth of the single parent families has had an enormous
financial impact on our society at large. Some three-quarters
or 75 percent of the aid to children, given through programs
such as food stamps, Medicaid, public housing, temporary
assistance to needy families and the earned income tax credit,
goes to single parent families.
Each year the Government spends over $150 billion in means
tested welfare aid, generally for single parents. The financial
cost can be calculated, but the emotional cost, the emotional
cost to our families, to the communities, to the Nation cannot
be calculated and threatens to extend for future generations.
I believe that improving a couple's financial stability can
help sustain a healthy marriage. As a way to assist low income
married couples gain appreciable assets, this subcommittee has
introduced legislation that will establish marriage development
accounts (MDA). What we are referring to as MDAs for the
District of Columbia, and as far as we know, for the first time
in the Nation.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
MDAs will be available to low income married couples who
are citizens or legal residents of the District and who have
very low net worth. I've got a chart over to the side,
picturing how this would actually work. Couples may save money
to buy a home, to pay for job training or education or start
their own businesses. Couples will have a high incentive to
save because their contribution will be matched at a ratio of
3:1 by the Federal Government and partnering private
institutions.
As a requirement of participation, couples will receive
training that helps them repair their credit, set a budget, a
savings schedule and manage their money. They will also receive
bonuses in their MDA accounts for receiving marriage
counseling. Recognizing the importance of grassroots support to
ensure the success of these efforts, this subcommittee is
directing grantees to expand their network of service providers
by partnering with local churches, faith-based organizations
and nonprofit organizations, to provide mentoring, couples
counseling and community outreach.
Today, I'm interested to hear thoughts about this proposal
from our expert witnesses. I believe that we must act quickly
to stop the further erosion of marriage in our Nation. We
cannot just watch and wring our hands. We must act aggressively
and use as many innovative approaches as possible. Our future
is at stake, and the children's future is at stake.
I'm delighted that we have a number of expert witnesses to
testify. I'm also very pleased that our first witness is the
Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton, Delegate for the District of
Columbia. We've often worked together on issues regarding the
District of Columbia, I know Delegate Norton to be an
outstanding advocate for the District of Columbia in many and
varied fields. She does an excellent job. We certainly share a
deep concern for families and children here in the District of
Columbia and throughout the Nation. I am pleased she could join
us this morning.
As usual, we would ask the witnesses, if they could, to
observe the time limit on their remarks. Their full written
statement will be entered into the record. We would like to
have some time afterwards to be able to ask questions.
The hearing is really multiple fold. One is, this is an
issue that will come up in the D.C. appropriations bill in the
next couple of weeks and so I do want to establish some form of
record.
The second is, is that people across the Nation are looking
at this as a way to go to encourage marriage. Not requiring it,
but encouraging it. And so, we need to establish a form and a
record here to say, ``How do the experts look at this? What are
the advantages, what are the disadvantages, what are the
potential pitfalls to this?'' So that we can try to structure
it to be the most successful possible.
With that, Eleanor, I am very pleased to see you again and
look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, DELEGATE FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm inclined
to say until we meet again and we've met again. I remember your
extraordinary service when the District was really down and the
valuable assistance you gave us in getting the tax incentives
which have been very instrumental in bringing the city back up
and now we meet again.
This time, not in your former life as chair on the
authorizing committee, but here, as Chair of the D.C.
Appropriations Subcommittee. So I begin by thanking you for
your very valuable work on that subcommittee, for your
principled respect for the city's right to self-government and
in that respect, you are following in the traditions set by
your predecessors who had chaired the subcommittee.
May I also say, Mr. Chairman, that I appreciate your
willingness to have a hearing on the proposal for high school
attendance, using federally funded vouchers. Before that
proposal is made, before that proposal moves forward, it is
opposed by all our city officials and by most D.C. residents.
Mayor Williams will be talking with you about that, but
he's asked me to tell you that he supports you on the marriage
development account proposal and that he will be calling you
concerning a whole new issue of importance in the city's
upcoming D.C. appropriation that you have just mentioned.
I am pleased to offer my views on the voluntary, 100
percent federally supported or federally funded MDAs as you
call them. Mr. Chairman, I indicated my skepticism because I
think we ought to confront issues head on, that there is some
skepticism about how the proposal that is identified as a
marriage proposal coming from a Republican Senator to the
District of Columbia.
So, I asked myself, ``Well what are the reasons for those
concerns?'' And I believe they amount to about six. The fact of
Government action outside of its traditional public sphere of
interest. Federal funds specifically for marriage, a private
even intimate institution, the necessity of some partners to
end a marriage, particularly when there is emotional or
physical abuse, competition for prudent use of scarce public
resources, for proven strategies, the political or ideological
use of the issue of marriage in some quarters, and of course,
the long and existing racial sensitivity of African-Americans
about family matters considering the wounds to black family
life from societal racism and official governmental policies
alike.
Notwithstanding the questions about this proposal, I am
convinced the issues that I have just named are not implicated,
these concerns are not implicated in your proposal, and that
your proposal has considerable promise.
I'd like to devote the few minutes I have, I'm due at a--as
ranking member of a hearing on FEMA shortly. I'd like to devote
my time to matters--essentially, why I think Federal Government
action is warranted and why I believe your proposal, in
particular, is an appropriate step.
I think people should put aside marriage and what they
think about the institution between two people, certainly for
purposes of this discussion because I agree with your opening
statement. The evidence is indisputable, that the advantages
and life chances for children from happy marriages is
desirable. I don't think there is anybody in the world who
would not desire that.
Yet, we see all around us, the decline of marriage. It's
global, Mr. Chairman, and it's complicated. The reasons are
complicated and they are multiple and they vary by nation, they
vary by nation.
This much is clear. Effective interventions are so rare
that they have escaped at least my notice, Mr. Chairman,
whether from church, sad to say, or from the State or for that
matter--or all that is in between. I think your proposal has to
be seriously considered by anybody who believes, as I do, that
the effect of marriage dissolution or failure to form marriages
is felt chiefly by children as innocent victims. That simply
cannot be the escaped.
People stop thinking about themselves for a moment and
think about the effect on the children that result from some
marriages. Then, I think we will all be on the same page. I
confess that this has been an issue of, for me, overriding
importance since the 1970s.
In reading some data, I chanced upon the statistic that
showed that one-third of black children were born to single
mothers and I was astounded, I said this is intolerable. Now of
course, it's about 70 percent. Ever since then, I have been
working on this issue. And for me, the issue has become
accentuated because it's spread throughout the ethnic groups.
White families are in just as deep troubles, we're just
further along on this terrible cycle than they are.
But I focus on black Americans, not only because I, myself
am black, but because we are not simply talking about family
dissolution or divorce, as tragic as that is for children,
especially young children.
We are talking in the African community about the failure
to form families at all through marriage as a norm. When I say
70 percent of children are born to single mothers, I don't mean
mothers who were married and are now single. I mean mothers who
are single and have no prospects for marriage at all.
In 1985, I wrote what I believe to be the first published
article in a national magazine, national publication. It was
published in the New York Times Magazine. It was called
``Restoring the Traditional Black Family''. We have given it to
your staff for the record. I reread this piece before preparing
my testimony and I was amazed by the extent of which I could
have written it in preparation for this testimony, sad to say.
I am pleased to say, however, that the black family is no
longer an issue not to be discussed in the black community as
it was sadly, for so many years after the Moynihan report. That
I think had to do coincidentally with the fact that the Civil
Rights Act had just been passed and nobody wanted to hear about
anybody's family when we still lived in a country where racism
was pervasive and we had the first enforceable Civil Rights Act
that had been passed. And that coincidence is sad, but it
delayed, sadly, facing this issue.
You will find some aspect of black family issues on every
major black organization's agenda. Not just the issues that
they must focus on, because that's where the children are, not
just the issues they have traditionally focused on like welfare
reform that meet the communities' needs or food stamps or
rehabilitative juvenile justice and on and on. Those are all
fallout issues.
Not all of them are solved by happy marriages, and no one
doubts the statistics that you referred to, are consistent over
time, that the children of reasonably happy marriages most
often don't fall into these categories and do not have these
same needs.
Mr. Chairman, to your credit, when you and I spoke at
Brookings a few weeks ago, you did not inflate MDAs as a
solution to the family crisis in our country. If I can quote
you, ``We can't find a tested model around the country, but
let's start trying.'' And I think we owe this mammoth issue at
least that, to start trying.
Given the failure all the way around this area, Federal and
local government, churches and other religious institutions,
and the failure of families who are primarily responsible for
their own children. I see in your proposal, as I looked more
closely at it, Mr. Chairman, a possible hypothesis that I think
has at least been demonstrated in the past.
When you look at our country's marriage rates, you note
that in poor economies people delay marriage, such as the
economy of the Great Depression. And even today, young people
are delaying marriage and we know there are many reasons for
that. But no one doubts that one of the reasons for it is
demonstrated by the fact that so many move back in or stay in
housing with their parents. Boy, we certainly would never have
thought of doing that when I graduated from college, everybody
wanted to leave home. They are not there just because they love
being in that nest and don't want to leave it empty, Mr.
Chairman.
And we see evidence from the fact that the cost of a
college education has been so often, shifted from parents to
students through loans. And thus, they spend their years after
the college trying to repay those loans. And one of the effects
is, of course, to delay marriage.
I don't want to simplify the many complicated reasons for
the decline of marriage in the African-American community, but
I believe there are economic disincentives for many African-
Americans, at least poor African-Americans to be married. And
that the MDAs are an attempt, a small and modest attempt, and
that is how you have put it forward, but an attempt to deal
with what we know may be of some concern to young people who
see other people who are not married around them, who don't
have the wherewithal to get married. But who might see in your
program, the ability to in fact, own a home and to save on the
home or instead of living in that one room that the man or the
woman may now live in.
If marriage were contemplated, you've got to think about
your responsibility for housing for a family, or job or job
training or for that matter, a college education, which is
always been a reason. And a very good reason to delay marriage.
And if you can save for that, you might contemplate marriage as
a viable option, as something that ought to be done
particularly if you have children or intend to have children.
And Mr. Chairman, I compliment you on not trying to do this
on the cheap. But the 3:1 match, it seems to me, is a genuine
incentive, when one looks to see if this is a program that I
should try to join even given the fact that I don't have much
income and that it requires for me to set aside some of this
scarce income.
The counseling component that I think you wisely put into
the proposal is absolutely necessary, the skills training so
that people know how to put aside money when they don't have
enough money in the first place. I welcome participation of
clergy and I'm assuming that they are not being paid for their
religious and ministerial obligation to do counseling itself.
But I would welcome the opportunity for them to be trained
in the marriage counseling aspect of this proposal. The
counseling is--I believe some counseling, some professional
counseling for the beneficiaries of those who participate in
the program is also necessary. Because we want to make sure
that they are focused on the marriage goal and not only on the
resources provided by the program. That domestic and emotional
coercions or violence is absent, and that both parties are not
only voluntarily participating, because that is required by the
proposal, but that it is seen by both parties as a commitment
to share their lives together, to build their lives together,
an opportunity to move on to the next productive stage in their
lives together.
There are a few questions that I hope this hearing will
clarify or that you yourself will seek to clarify. For example,
young people as young as 16 are included, I'm assuming that's
in order to discourage early pregnancy or fatherhood, which is
of course consistent with the overall marriage goal of the
proposal.
I was not clear what would happen if a young person, who
must remain childless and unmarried between 16 and 22, decided
to be married, perhaps to someone not in the program at 20. I'm
not sure from the outline and I recognized I have only a
summary, what would happen with the resources and especially
with the match, considering there is a partner who has not
participated. But indeed, I'm sure everybody's happy their
marriage is, perhaps, going to take place.
The proposal preselects grantees, that's at odds with
Federal and District government requirements and practices. But
I imagine that the point was to make sure you had organizations
with relevant experience. I think the way to deal with that
objection is to make sure that in any case, there's direct
participation and oversight of some kind by the District
government. It is the District government and its officials who
have the most long time, most relevant experience with the
target population.
I suggested that some role for the District of Columbia be
written into the proposal, well beyond their experience, which
I think the--those who administer the program will very much
need. But well beyond that, the District needs to be a full
partner in learning from this proposal, how to use its own
resources to further marriage formation and stable marriages.
Another reason I think that it's important to write the
District into the proposal is that I have personally discussed
this matter with the Mayor and City Council Chair, and they
believe it is appropriate and beneficial for the District.
Without the District being in the proposal, it gives the
appearance, an entirely unintended appearance, that the
proposal is imposed on the District of Columbia.
You discussed this proposal with me, Mr. Chairman, you know
that I was in full agreement with it, they are in full
agreement with it. I believe their participation will only
enhance the proposal.
There is not in the summary I saw, any provisions for an
evaluation of the functioning over the results of the program.
I quote from your remarks at Brookings, ``Help us to design
what it is that we should measure so that we can look at it,
consider it, think about it, see if this is the right way.'' So
I know you want the results to be replicable, you want to know
whether this proposal, these MDAs in fact worked. And I think
the only way to find that out is through a credible, controlled
study provided in the legislation.
Let me conclude, Mr. Chairman, by admitting that you must
have known in advance that I would embrace this proposal.
Because you and I discussed my own work with the black family
issues and my own work with the D.C. Commission on Black Men
and Boys, I have been so frustrated with the failure to form
remedies, that I have formed my own commission of young black
men and other black men, all black men in the District of
Columbia who have held their own set of hearings on designing
an action plan.
Mr. Chairman, the hearings that this commission, I don't
sit on the commission, commission is held--commission hearings
are held in the city. We never see hearings like this one, Mr.
Chairman. We have our witnesses and after the witnesses the
community can get up and testify. You know, in the church, they
say testifying. There's some testifying about family life, and
when this occurs they can conduct their hearings the way you
are conducting this hearing. They have their witnesses and then
the community testifies.
Unlike the hearings, government hearings in the District
and in the government, we see, we have seen in these hearings,
people that do not attend government hearings and we have heard
testimony of the kind we have never heard. We have heard eye
opening testimony from the expert witnesses, men who have been
incarcerated, people who are raising children alone that have
produced already an outline of an action plan of, not a
recommendation that we would like to see if we could only get
funding, but of things that could be done today by both the
public and the private sectors.
Your proposal, Mr. Chairman, in its own way, it sets the
underlying theory of the commission on black men, as I see it.
Or let me put it my way, in a country that has always
associated manhood with money, men without legitimate resources
and decent ways to achieve them in an ordinary way, will not
form a stable family.
Family deterioration began its steep decline only in the
late 1950s when manufacturing jobs left the cities. Men did
find and our community did find access to money and their own
sense of manhood through an economy they created in our
community. It is a drug economy, it is a gun economy, it is an
underground economy. And yes, too often it is a criminal
economy that just moved into our African-American communities
to replace the legitimate job economy of the fathers and
grandfathers of these young men.
Mr. Chairman, when you were chair of the authorizing
committee, you and I worked on ways to bring the District back
to health, including the tax incentives that I mentioned
earlier. I'm encouraged by this new proposal and I very much
look forward to working on an even more difficult issue. This
time with you in partnership. Thank you very much for this very
important effort.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today at this
hearing, which is indicative of the hard work and attention you have
given to District matters ever since you were chair of the Senate D.C.
authorizing subcommittee during your first term. We thank you for your
continued assistance to the city and its elected officials as the new
chair of the D.C. Appropriations subcommittee, particularly your
principled respect for the city's right to self government as American
citizens, continuing the laudable pattern set by your predecessors as
chair, Senators Hutchison and DeWine, and, of course, Senator Stevens,
the prior Appropriations Committee chair. We also are grateful to
Senator Mary Landrieu, ranking member throughout the same years who has
established a strong record of service to the District. May I also say
that I appreciate your willingness to hold an upcoming hearing on a
proposal for high school attendance using federally funded vouchers
outside of the District of Columbia before taking any such action,
which is strongly opposed by all our elected officials and by most D.C.
residents. Mayor Tony Williams has asked me to say that he supports the
Marriage Development Accounts (MDAs) you have proposed under discussion
here today. He says he will be calling on you soon concerning a home
rule issue of importance to the city in the current D.C. appropriation
for action at the conference.
I am pleased to offer my views on your provision for 100 percent
federally and privately funded voluntary marriage and pre-marriage
development accounts. However, if I may be candid, Mr. Chairman, there
is some skepticism about marriage accounts as proposed for the District
of Columbia by a Republican Senator, reflecting perhaps mainly six
concerns: government action outside of its traditional public sphere of
interest; federal funds specifically for marriage, a private, even
intimate institution; the necessity of some partners to end a marriage,
particularly when there is emotional or physical abuse; competition for
the prudent use of scarce public resources for proven strategies; the
political or ideological use of the issue of marriage in some quarters;
and, of course, the long-existing racial sensitivity of African
Americans about family matters considering the wounds to Black family
life, from societal racism and official government policies alike.
Notwithstanding some questions about the proposal that I believe should
be answered, I believe the marriage development accounts you propose do
not implicate these concerns, but instead hold considerable promise. I
want, therefore, to address two areas--why I think action by the
federal government is warranted and desirable, and why I believe your
proposal is an appropriate step to be taken at this time.
Wherever people may stand on marriage as an institution for the
benefit of two people, the richly documented and consistent evidence of
the advantages in life chances of every variety that flow to children
from reasonably happy marriages cannot be doubted. Yet the global
decline of marriage and the growth of poor, single mother-headed
families is too striking to ignore, leave aside the difficulties faced
by one parent alone, even with ample means, in raising children today.
The reasons for marriage decline are complicated and multiple and they
often differ by nation and by subgroup, but effective interventions are
so rare as to escape notice, whether from church, and sad to say, or
from state and, for that matter, all the institutions in between.
The expert witnesses you have invited no doubt will detail the
quite astonishing and disturbing statistical picture, the unacceptable
effects on children, and the kinds of proposals that have emerged. I
want to focus on the necessity to begin to get a grip on family and
marriage issues that defy the usual remedies. I believe that your
proposal chooses a significant path into this issue.
I have been concerned about the growth of female-headed families of
every race and ethnic group since the early 1970s, when I noticed what
seemed to me even then to be particularly intolerable figures showing
one-third of African American children born to single mothers, most of
them poor or near poor. My main concern since then has been with the
frightening growth of never married mothers, which has become the norm
with 70 percent of Black children born to such women who have never
been married and have declining prospects for marriage. In Black
America, the issue is in an extreme state--not family dissolution or
divorce, but the failure to form families at all through marriage,
often with devastating consequences for Black children. The growth of
female-headed households is acute for white and Hispanic families as
well, but I have concentrated my efforts on African American families,
where the problems are most advanced and serious, and on encouraging
Black national, local, and community leadership on the high voltage
issue of the Black family. In 1985, the New York Times Magazine
published an article by me entitled ``Restoring the Traditional Black
Family'' that I believe was the first major piece on the subject that
had appeared in a national publication since the Moynihan Report
stirred controversy in 1965. I reread this piece recently and found
that it could have been written today. I ask to submit it for your
record. Today, I am pleased that every major African American
organization has Black family issues on its agenda, not only the
traditional fallout issues of family dissolution or failed family
formation, such as assuring welfare reform that meets the community's
needs, food stamps, rehabilitative juvenile crime, education for
disadvantaged children, and similar important matters.
Only beginning with the New Deal did the federal government
acknowledge any federal responsibility to do what was necessary when a
single parent is unable to meet the basic needs of children, even for
food and shelter. However, we still do not know how to confront the
threshold issue of the failure of viable marriages and families and of
the disappearance of marriages that might prevent many of the problems
that the children of these families, and now, the government and our
society both face. Marriage and family issues are at once breathtaking
in their societal scope and yet highly individual and personal. These
issues do not easily suggest discrete paths that invite governmental
action and remedies. Your proposal, Mr. Chairman, is an attempt to find
an effective way into this vexing matrix of issues, and anyone who
cares about the resulting problems of millions of Black children will
find the proposal fully compatible with the values of all Americans and
of both parties, and will conclude that your proposal is the kind of
offer that we cannot afford to refuse and are pleased to accept.
To your credit, Mr. Chairman, when we both spoke recently at a
Brookings forum on marriage, you did not inflate the idea of MDAs, but
said, ``We can't find a tested model around the country, but let's
start trying.'' Trying is the least we owe a problem where every
responsible institution has failed--federal and local government,
churches and other religious institutions, and the families primarily
responsible for their own children.
I see in your proposal, Mr. Chairman, a possible hypothesis that at
least has been partially demonstrated in the past. We know that in this
country, people tend to delay marriage in poor economies, for example,
during the Great Depression, and we know that today many young people
are marrying later for perhaps a number of reasons, but certainly
including economic reasons apparent in evidence such as the numbers who
move back or stay in housing with their parents and the shift in the
cost of a college education to students through loans that must be
repaid by the students themselves, often without any significant
parental assistance.
Without simplifying the many reasons for marriage decline among
Blacks in particular, I believe there are large economic disincentives
to marriage for many African Americans that MDAs might directly
address, including responsibility for housing for a family and the
difficulty of continuing with training or education while assuming
family responsibilities. Your proposal would encourage engaged or
married couples to save for a home, job training or education, or to
start a business. Moreover, you are wise in not trying to do this on
the cheap, but instead use a 3:1 match that makes the incentive to save
from limited incomes genuine.
The counseling component that the proposal wisely provides is
essential to its success, including life skills training, such as how
to budget in order to be able to save, and martial and premarital
counseling. I welcome the participation of the clergy and faith-based
organizations, but hope that the proposal does not envision paying
ministers to fulfill the ministerial obligation of marriage counseling,
although training of ministers in the non-religious components of such
counseling would be appropriate in my view. Funding the inevitably
religious content of marriage counseling by ministers is unwise and
unnecessary, and would needlessly implicate First Amendment separation
of powers issues and invite litigation, an invitation that national and
local organizations here would almost surely accept. In any case, I am
sure that most ministers here would themselves be the first to say that
a minister of the Gospel should not be paid for doing his Christian
duty to encourage and reinforce marriage through marriage counseling
paid for by the federal government. The reward for clergy, of course,
would be to get young people to desire to be counseled in a religious
setting. In any case, notwithstanding faith-based efforts, professional
counseling by experts trained in psychology or counseling is necessary
to ensure that couples are always focused on the marriage goal and not
only the resources provided by the program, that domestic and emotional
coercion or violence is absent, and that for both partners, the process
is not only voluntary as required, but is seen by them as a commitment
they want to share and an opportunity to move on to another productive
stage in life together.
There are several questions I hope this hearing and further work
will clarify. For example, the proposal also includes single people of
both sexes as young as 16. Since the singles must remain single and
childless, perhaps the point is to help prevent early pregnancy and
fatherhood, which, of course, furthers the marriage emphasis of the
large proposal, but the goal for singles is not explicitly stated. It
also is not clear how the proposal would handle the savings and match
of a childless man or woman who starts as single, but marries at 20,
for example.
The proposal pre-selects grantees, at odds with federal government
and District competitive requirements practices, and moreover, as far
as I can tell, does not allow for any direct participation or oversight
by District government officials and experts who have the best and most
extensive experience and knowledge about the target population. I
believe, Mr. Chairman, you perhaps wanted to assure that the program
would be implemented by organizations with some relevant experience,
such as the Capital Area Asset Building Corporation, which has a track
record using individual development accounts in the District and
elsewhere. May I suggest, however, that an important role for the
District also be written into the law for two reasons even beyond the
District government's valued experience. The District needs to be a
full partner in learning from the proposal what it can do with its own
resources to further family formation and stable marriages through its
own agencies and existing programs. Second, I have spoken with the
Mayor and Chair of the City Council and they accept this proposal as
beneficial. Without specific involvement of the appropriate officials
and staff of the District of Columbia government, the unintended
appearance is created of a program imposed on the city rather than one
it accepts.
The summary of the proposal I received did not provide for an
evaluation or study of either the functioning or the results of the
program. You said during your Brookings remarks, ``Help us to design
what it is that we should measure so that we can look at it, consider
it, think about it, see if this is the right way.'' Because I believe
that the proposal is promising and may prove replicable to the further
benefit of the District and to other jurisdictions, I strongly
recommend that a credible, control study be provided in the
legislation. I do not believe that this or other governmental efforts
to encourage stable marriages will gain traction without such studies.
Finally, your proposal, Mr. Chairman, has special appeal to me,
because of my own work with the District with a Commission on Black Men
and Boys I initiated in 2001, composed of men from our community with
credibility with Black men and D.C. residents. The purpose of the
Commission is to enable the local community to develop an Action Plan
for achievable steps to be taken by the public and private sectors and
by families of every structure and make-up, and to intensify the focus
of families and of public and private entities on children. The
hearings of the Commission have been uniquely eye-opening and have
drawn residents in large numbers who normally do not attend government
hearings. With the help of the House Government Reform Committee on
which I serve, which has held its own Commission on Black Men and Boys
hearing, an Action Plan outline based on the Commission's hearings has
been completed. An enlarged Commission and its advisory body of experts
will shortly embark on the next phase of its work.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that you and I are trying to do the same
thing--to try effective ways to approach family and marriage
instability. I have focused on Black boys and men because I believed
that one important way to get a hold of Black family deterioration is
to focus on this vital and equal partner to whom little attention has
been given. Black family decline will continue if we do not face issues
facing Black men and boys in work and in preparation for work, in
pursuit of education, in incarceration, in reentry from prison, in
juvenile justice, and in the perils of street life and gun and drug
running.
In the United States, we have given considerable attention to
almost all of these issues as they affect girls, with demonstrable
success, such as reduction in teen pregnancy while boys continue to
father children with little attention paid to how to approach this
partner in the African American family with equal responsibility for
their children. We blithely ignore and perpetuate the causes of a
devastating gap that militates against African American family
formation--the growth in the number of Black women ready for marriage
and children, and the decline of marriageable Black males. No cause of
this gap that is destroying the prospects for repairing African
American family life is greater than the mandatory minimums and
sentencing guidelines that have left a generation of non-violent drug
pedaling young Black men with felony records that doom their personal
life chances, passing on to the African American community at-large the
destruction of the most cherished part of the legacy of our
forefathers--the Black nuclear and extended family tradition that even
slavery and vicious discrimination could not destroy.
Your proposal accepts the underlying theory of the Commission on
Black Men and Boys. Put my way, in a country that has always associated
manhood with money, men without legitimate resources and decent ways to
achieve them in the ordinary way will not form stable families today.
Black family deterioration began with problems that directly affected
Black men in particular. The rapid flight of decent paying,
manufacturing jobs beginning in the late 1950s correlates almost
exactly with the beginning of steep Black family decline. It was then
that men without jobs began to resist forming families as their fathers
had always done. They did find access to money and to their sense of
manhood through the drug economy, the underground economy and the gun
economy, all of which moved into African American communities to
replace the legitimate jobs of the traditional economy that had
disappeared.
Mr. Chairman, when you chaired the Senate D.C. authorizing
committee, you and I worked together to achieve the D.C. tax incentives
that have proved so successful in the District that I am trying to
renew them this year. I was encouraged by the partnership you and I
achieved then. I am ready and willing to work with you now on one of
society's most difficult problems. Thank you for being willing to
engage this toughest of challenges.
[From The New York Times, June 2, 1985]
Restoring the Traditional Black Family
(By Eleanor Holmes Norton)
What would society be like if the family found it difficult to
perform its most basic functions? We are beginning to find out. Half of
all marriages in this country end in divorce, and half of all children
will spend a significant period with only one parent.
Startling and unsettling changes have already occurred in black
family life, especially among the poor. Since the 1960's, birth rates
among blacks have fallen dramatically, but two out of every three black
women having a first child are single, compared to one out of every six
white women. Today, well over half of black children in this country
are born to single women. Why are female-headed households multiplying
now, when there is less discrimination and poverty than a couple of
generations ago, when black family life was stronger?
The disruption of the black family today is, in exaggerated
microcosm, a reflection of what has happened to American family life in
general. Public anxiety has mounted with the near-doubling of the
proportion of white children living with one parent (from 9 percent to
17 percent) since 1970. Single parents of all backgrounds are feeling
the pressures--the sheer economics of raising children primarily on the
depressed income of the mother (a large component of the so-called
``feminization of poverty''); the psychological and physical toll when
one person, however advantaged, must be both mother and father, and the
effects on children.
The stress on American family life was recently addressed by
Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, Democrat of New York, on the 20th
anniversary of his controversial ``Moynihan Report.'' The original
report confined its analysis to the black family. Moynihan, who in
April delivered a series of lectures at Harvard on the family, said,
``I want to make clear this is not a black issue.'' Indeed, just last
month, the problem of increasing poverty among all the nation's
children was underscored in a major report from two Federal agencies.
Yet until recently, many blacks have had an almost visceral
reaction to mention of black family problems. Wounds to the family were
seen as the most painful effect of American racism. Many blacks and
their supporters have regarded talk of black family weaknesses as
tantamount to insult and smear. Some conservatives have taken signs of
trouble in the black family as proof that the remaining problems of
race are internal and have announced the equivalent of ``Physician,
heal thyself.''
At the heart of the crisis lies the self-perpetuating culture of
the ghetto. This destructive ethos began to surface 40 years ago with
the appearance of permanent joblessness and the devaluation of working-
class black men. As this nation's post-World War II economy has helped
produce a black middle class, it has also, ironically, been destroying
the black working class and its family structure. Today, the process
has advanced so far that renewal of the black family goes beyond the
indispensable economic ingredients. The family's return to its historic
strength will require the overthrow of the complicated, predatory
ghetto subculture, a feat demanding not only new Government approaches
but active black leadership and community participation and commitment.
While this crisis was building, it received almost no public
attention, in part because of the notorious sensitivity of the subject.
Yet 20 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke candidly about the black
family, spelling out the ``alarming'' statistics on ``the rate of
illegitimacy,'' the increase in female-headed households and the rise
in families on welfare. The black family, King asserted, had become
``fragile, deprived and often psychopathic.''
King relied in part on the Moynihan report, written when the
Senator was an Assistant Secretary of Labor. Many were stunned by what
one critic called the report's ``salacious `discovery' ''--its
discussion of illegitimacy, matriarchy and welfare and its view that
black family structure had become, in its own words, a ``tangle of
pathology'' capable of perpetuating itself without assistance from the
white world. As a result, the report's concern with remedies, including
jobs, and its call for a national family policy were eclipsed.
The delay has been costly to blacks and to the country. When King
spoke out, the statistics he characterized as alarming showed that two-
and-a-half times as many black families as white ones were headed by
women. Today, it is almost three-and-a-half times as many--43 percent
of black families compared with 13 percent of white families. Since
1970, out-of-wedlock births have become more prevalent throughout
society, almost doubling among whites to 11 percent. But among blacks,
births to single women have risen from 38 percent in 1970 to 57 percent
in 1982.
While families headed by women have often proved just as effective
as two-parent families in raising children, the most critical danger
facing female-headed households is poverty. Seventy percent of black
children under the age of 18 who live in female-headed families are
being brought up in poverty. In 1983, the median income for such
households was $7,999, compared to almost $32,107 for two-parent
families of all races, in which both spouses worked. Without the large
increase in female-headed households, black family income would have
increased by 11 percent in the 1970's. Instead, it fell by 5 percent.
As last month's report from the Congressional Research Service and
the Congressional Budget Office pointed out, ``The average black child
can expect to spend more than five years of his childhood in poverty;
the average white child, 10 months.''
Buried beneath the statistics is a world of complexity originating
in the historic atrocity of slavery and linked to modern discrimination
and its continuing effects. What has obscured the problem is its
delicacy and its uniqueness. The black family has been an issue in
search of leadership. Discussion of problems in the black family has
been qualitatively different from debates on voting rights or job
discrimination. Fear of generating a new racism has foreclosed whatever
opportunity there may have been to search for relief, driving the issue
from the public agenda and delaying for a generation the search for
workable solutions. Today, when nearly half of all black children are
being raised in poverty, further delay is unthinkable.
Blacks themselves have been stunned by recent disclosures of the
extent of the growth of poor, alienated female-headed households. The
phenomenon is outside the personal experience of many black adults.
Many have overcome deep poverty and discrimination only because of the
protection and care of stable traditional and extended families. As
recently as the early 1960's, 75 percent of black households were
husband-and-wife families. The figure represents remarkable
continuity--it is about the same as those reported in census records
from the late 19th century. Indeed, the evidence suggests that most
slaves grew up in two-parent families reinforced by ties to large
extended families.
The sharp rise in female-headed households involves mostly those
with young children and began in the mid-1960's. The phenomenon--while
by no means a trend that permeates the entire black community--affects
a significant portion of young people today, many of whom are separated
economically, culturally and socially from the black mainstream. They
have been raised in the worst of the rapidly deteriorating ghettos of
the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, in cities or neighborhoods that lost
first the white and then the black middle and working classes. Drugs,
crime and pimps took over many of the old communities. Blacks remaining
were often trapped and isolated, cut off from the values of the black
working poor and middle class--where husbands often work two jobs,
wives return to work almost immediately after childbirth and extended
families of interdependent kin are still more prevalent than among
whites.
A complete explanation of black family disruption does not emerge
from a roundup of the usual suspects, including the many factors that
make American family life generally less stable these days: the ease
and relative acceptance of separation, divorce and childbirth outside
of marriage; the decline of religion and other traditional family-
reinforcing institutions, and welfare rules that discourage family
unity and penalize economic initiative. Anecdotal explanations--the
girl-mothers are said to want to love and receive affection from a
baby; the boy-fathers reportedly brag about making babies--are also
inadequate. Such anecdotes do not explain how the strong presumption in
favor of marriage before childbearing has been overcome so often.
The emergence of single women as the primary guardians of the
majority of black children is a pronounced departure that began to take
shape following World War II. Ironically, the women and children--the
most visible manifestations of the change--do not provide the key to
the transformation. The breakdown begins with working-class black men,
whose loss of function in the post-World War II economy has led
directly to their loss of function in the family.
In the booming post-World War I economy, black men with few skills
could find work. Even the white South, which denied the black man a
place in its wage economy, could not deprive him of an economic role in
the farm family. The poorest, most meanly treated sharecropper was at
the center of the work it took to produce the annual crop.
As refugees from the South, the generation of World War I migrants
differed in crucial respects from the World War II generation. The
World War I arrivals were enthusiastic, voluntary migrants, poor in
resources but frequently middle class in aspiration. They were at the
bottom of a society that denied them the right to move up very far, but
they got a foothold in a burgeoning economy.
Family stability was the rule. According to a 1925 study in New
York City, five out of six children under the age of six lived with
both parents. Nationally, a small middle class emerged, later augmented
by the jobs generated by World War II, service in the armed forces and
the postwar prosperity that sometimes filtered down to urban blacks.
Today's inner-city blacks were not a part of these historical
processes. Some are the victims of the flight of manufacturing jobs.
Others were part of the last wave of Southern migrants or their
offspring, arriving in the 1950's and 1960's. They often migrated not
because of new opportunities but because of the evaporation of old
ones. Mechanized farming made their labor superfluous in agriculture,
but unlike the blacks of earlier generations and European immigrants,
later black migrants were also superfluous in the postwar cities as
manufacturing work for the less-skilled and poorly educated declined.
Today's postindustrial society, demanding sophisticated preparation and
training, has only exacerbated these problems.
This permanent, generational joblessness is at the core of the
meaning of the American ghetto. The resulting, powerful aberration
transforms life in poor black communities and forces everything else to
adapt to it. The female-headed household is only one consequence. The
underground economy, the drug culture, epidemic crime and even a highly
unusual disparity between the actual number of men and women--all owe
their existence to the cumulative effect of chronic joblessness among
men. Over time, deep structural changes have taken hold and created a
different ethos.
An entire stratum of black men, many of them young, no longer
performs its historic role in supporting a family. Many are unemployed
because of the absence of jobs, or unemployable because their ghetto
origins leave them unprepared for the job market. Others have adapted
to the demands of the ghetto--the hustle, the crime, the drugs. But the
skills necessary to survive in the streets are those least acceptable
in the outside world.
The macho role cultivated in the ghetto makes it difficult for many
black men, unable to earn a respectable living, to form households and
assume the roles of husband and father. Generationally entrenched
joblessness joined with the predatory underground economy form the
bases of a marginal life style. Relationships without the commitments
of husband and father result.
This qualitative change in fundamental family relationships could
have occurred only under extreme and unrelentingly destructive
conditions. Neither poverty nor cyclical unemployment alone could have
had this impact. After all, poverty afflicts most of the world's
people. If economic and social hardships could in themselves destroy
family life, the family could not have survived as the basic human unit
throughout the world.
The transformation in poor black communities goes beyond poverty.
These deep changes are anchored in a pervasively middle-class society
that associates manhood with money. Shocking figures show a long, steep
and apparently permanent decline in black men's participation in the
labor force, even at peak earning ages. In 1948, before the erosion of
unskilled and semiskilled city and rural jobs had become pronounced,
black male participation in the labor force was 87 percent, almost a
full point higher than that of white males.
In the generation since 1960, however, black men have experienced a
dramatic loss of jobs--dropping from an employment rate of 74 percent
to 55 percent in 1982, according to the Center for the Study of Social
Policy in Washington. While white male employment slipped in that
period, much of the white decline, unlike that of the blacks, is
attributed to early retirement. Since 1960, the black male population
over 18 has doubled, but the number employed has lagged badly.
These figures tell a story not only of structural unemployment, but
of structural changes in low-income black families. The unemployment
rates of young blacks have been the most devastating and militate
against the establishment of stable marriages. This year, for instance,
black teen-agers overall had an unemployment rate of 39 percent, two-
and-a-half times that of white teen-agers. The loss of roles as workers
has led to the acceptance of other roles for financial gain, many of
them antisocial. With large numbers of young men imprisoned, disabled
by drugs or otherwise marginal and unavailable as marriage partners,
there is an unusual disparity between the sheer numbers of marriageable
black men and black women. Among whites, the ratio of men to women does
not change significantly until age 50, when men's shorter life
expectancy creates a gap. But among blacks, beginning at age 20, women
outnumber men significantly enough to have a major impact upon the
possibility of marriage.
Some argue persuasively that the female-headed family is an
adaptation that facilitates coping with hardship and demographics. This
seems undeniable as an explanation, but unsatisfactory as a response.
Are we willing to accept an adaptation that leaves the majority of
black children under the age of 6--the crucial foundation years of
life--living in poverty? Given a real choice, poor blacks, like
everybody else, would hardly choose coping mechanisms over jobs,
educational opportunity and family stability.
Yet, the remedy for ghetto conditions is not as simple as providing
necessities and opportunities. The ghetto is not simply a place. It has
become a way of life. Just as it took a complex of social forces to
produce ghetto conditions, it will take a range of remedies to dissolve
them. The primary actors unavoidably are the Government and the black
community itself.
The Government is deeply implicated in black family problems. Its
laws enforced slavery before the Civil War and afterward created and
sanctioned pervasive public and private discrimination. The effects on
the black family continue to this day. Given the same opportunities as
others, blacks would almost certainly have sustained the powerful
family traditions they brought with them from Africa, where society
itself is organized around family.
Quite apart from its historical role, the Government cannot avoid
present responsibility. It can choose, as it now does, to ignore and
delay the search for ways to break the hold of the ghetto, such as
early intervention with young children and training and education for
the hard-core poor. Although programs capable of penetrating ghetto
conditions have proved elusive, the current Government posture of
disengagement is folly. With the poor growing at a faster rate than the
middle class, the prospect is that succeeding generations will yield
more, not fewer, disadvantaged blacks. An American version of a
lumpenproletariat (the so-called underclass), without work and without
hope, existing at the margins of society, could bring down the great
cities, sap resources and strength from the entire society and, lacking
the usual means to survive, prey upon those who possess them.
Perhaps the greatest gap in corrective strategies has been the
failure to focus on prevention. Remedies for deep-rooted problems--from
teen-age pregnancy to functional illiteracy--are bound to fail when we
leave the water running while we struggle to check the overflow. A
primary incubator for ghetto problems is the poor, female-headed
household. Stopping its proliferation would prevent a spectrum of
often-intractable social and economic problems.
Remedies often focus at opposite ends--either on the provision of
income or of services. Neither seems wholly applicable to entrenched
ghetto conditions. Public assistance alone, leaving people in the same
defeatist environment, may reinforce the status quo. The service
orientation has been criticized for using a disproportionate amount of
the available resources relative to the results obtained.
More appropriate solutions may lie between income and service
strategies. Programs are likely to be more successful if they provide a
rigorous progression through a series of steps leading to
``graduation.'' This process, including a period of weaning from public
assistance, might prove more successful in achieving personal
independence. Such programs would be far more disciplined than services
to the poor generally have been. They would concentrate on changing
life styles as well as imparting skills and education. The test of
their effectiveness would be the recipients' progress in achieving
economic self-sufficiency.
To reach boys and men, especially the hard-core unemployed, more
work needs to be done to cull the successful aspects of training and
job programs. Effective training models need to be systematically
replicated. It is untenable to abandon the hard-core unemployed, as the
Reagan Administration has done, by moving to a jobs program that
focuses on the most, rather than the least, trainable. Ghetto males
will not simply go away. As we now see, they will multiply themselves.
The welfare program--a brilliant New Deal invention now stretched
to respond to a range of problems never envisioned for it--often
deepens dependence and lowers self-esteem. Although welfare enjoys
little support anywhere along the political spectrum, it continues for
lack of an alternative.
Reconceived, a public-assistance program could reach single mothers
and offer them vehicles to self-sufficiency. The counterparts of young
women on welfare are working downtown or attending high school or
junior college on grants to low-income students. Far from foreclosing
such opportunities because a woman has a child, public assistance
should be converted from the present model of passive maintenance to a
program built around education or work and prospective graduation.
Studies of the hard-core unemployed have shown women on welfare to
be the most desirous of, open to and successful with training and work.
Some, especially with young children, will remain at home, but most
want work or training because it is the only way out of the welfare
life. Some promising experiments in work and welfare are underway in
such cities as San Diego and Baltimore. But the old ``workfare''
approach, when administered as another form of welfare with no attempt
to break the cycle of dependency, is self-defeating. Gainful
employment, even if in public jobs for those unaccommodated by the
private sector, would have beneficial effects beyond earning a living.
Jobs and training would augment self-esteem by exposing women to the
values and discipline associated with work, allowing them to pass on to
their children more than their own disadvantages.
The ghetto, more than most circumscribed cultures, seeks to
perpetuate itself and is ruthless in its demand for conformity.
However, it contains institutions of the larger society--schools,
churches, community groups. With minor additional resources, schools,
for example, could incorporate more vigorous and focused ways to
prevent teen-age pregnancy. If pregnancy occurs, girls could be
motivated to remain in school, even after childbirth, thus allowing an
existing institution to accomplish what training programs in later life
do more expensively and with greater difficulty.
Schools and other community institutions also need to become much
more aggressive with boys on the true meaning and responsibilities of
manhood, and the link between manhood and family. Otherwise, many boys
meet little resistance to the ghetto message that associates manhood
with sex but not responsibility.
Most important, nothing can substitute for or have a greater impact
than the full-scale involvement of the black community. Respect for the
black family tradition compels black initiative. Today, blacks are
responding. Many black organizations are already involved, including
the National Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, the National Council of Negro Women and the National
Urban Coalition. In 1983, the country's major black leaders endorsed a
frank statement of the problems of the black family and a call for
solutions. The statement, published by the Joint Center for Political
Studies, a black research center in Washington, represented the first
consensus view by black leadership on the problems of the black family.
Significantly, it went beyond a call for Government help, stressing the
need for black leadership and community efforts.
With the increase in the number of black public officials, many
black mayors, legislators and appointed officials control some of the
resources that could help shape change. Although they cannot redesign
the welfare system by themselves, for example, some are in a position
to experiment with model projects that could lead to more workable
programs--such as supplementing welfare grants with training or work
opportunities for single mothers; promoting family responsibility and
pregnancy prevention for boys and girls through local institutions, and
encouraging the completion of school for single teen-aged parents.
The new black middle class, a product of the same period that saw
the weakening of the black family, still has roots in the ghetto
through relatives and friends. From churches, Girl Scout troops and
settlement houses to civil-rights organizations, Boys' Clubs and
athletic teams, the work of family reinforcement can be shared widely.
The possibilities for creative community intervention are many--from
family planning and counseling and various roles as surrogate parents
and grandparents, to sex education, community day care and simple, but
crucial, consciousness-raising. Most important is passing on the
enduring values that form the central content of the black American
heritage: hard work, education, respect for family, and,
notwithstanding the denial of personal opportunity, achieving a better
life for one's children.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Delegate, I appreciate it
very much and I appreciate your thoughtfulness on a tough
topic. I've looked at these trend line numbers for years now
that I have been in the House and the Senate of the overall
society and with the African-American community and am very
disturbed by them.
What do you do and what do you do to try to change this
back? I appreciate your thoughts, I particularly appreciate the
specific items that you raised here that you'd like to see
dealt with in the proposal. And we'll take those to heart and
see if we can't address several of those in the training and
encouraging the participation by those underage, preselecting
grantees and getting the D.C. government involved in the
evaluations.
The evaluation portion is written in the bill and maybe we
need to make that portion clearer, but I think those are good,
critical evaluations that need to be brought forward.
The one question that I wanted to ask you, but I think you
really caught it there at the end, is you've watched this for a
long period of time. You've watched these numbers, you've been
concerned about these numbers for a long period of time. If you
could go back to when you started to get alarmed by these
numbers and have changed something at that period of time to
slow down these trend lines, to change these trend lines, what
would you have changed?
Now, I take it from your last statement, you would have
changed the ability of men to be able to earn legitimate
incomes is probably the thing that you would have focused on.
If there's a different answer to that than that point, tell me
where there needs to be additions to that thing that you would
have changed.
But do you go back there into the mid-1980s, when you wrote
this article or whenever, what would you have done?
Ms. Norton. In a real sense, Mr. Chairman, I think you have
embraced the theory I would adopt, in your own way. You are
looking through the economic business sense of a marriage and
you know full well that people who don't have anything are less
likely, in today's society, it's not always that way, but in
today's society to make things ``worse'' by taking on
responsibility for more than themselves.
If I could go back--and perhaps the society would have to
be clairvoyant to understand this. As jobs began to disappear,
I think the failure to focus on what was happening to black
families had much to do with the fact that it was chiefly
happening to men.
And men are supposed to take care of themselves. That is to
say, it is interesting that female participation in the
workforce--black females' participation, now that has all gone
up. White male participation has gone down of course, but black
male participation has so steeply fallen that it seems to me
that if you were looking in the early 1960s, you would say that
something else has to work here besides the kinds of trends we
see for white males.
I would have taken a look at job incentives of the kind
that we still don't do when men are involved, and that is job
incentives for men. The only incentives that the Government is
interested in are incentives for women to go back to work,
their children are on welfare, we're not giving them enough
daycare. I am very concerned by what happens to those single
mothers, we really don't fool with men.
And yet, you can see my bias is toward men. The women, we
have the number of marriageable black women has continued to
grow, because more women are educated, go to college. Women
don't have more than one child, have perhaps two while on
welfare. They get that over with, they go out and work. Then
they look at the pool of marriageable black men.
Well, the same number of men might be out there that were
out there when I was a young woman, but let's look at the
nature of the pool. Black women have often married men who
weren't as well educated as they, largely because a college
education didn't pay for a black man. Because a black man would
not be hired in business.
Whereas black women, they will always be hired as teachers
and nurses. So our history is replete with black women who went
to nursing school or went to teachers college and black men who
worked as laborers and made more money than their wives did.
And yet, some would consider that an occupation not on a par
with the professional occupation of their wives.
But let's look at that same woman today and perhaps she's
not a teacher, perhaps she's somebody who was on welfare and
now she's ready, she's on her own and she simply wants to have
a regular life and to get married. Let's look at the pool,
period. Whatever her state or status, the pool, I discussed in
my testimony, Mr. Chairman, consists of black men, huge numbers
of them who have felony records. Half of the men in jail, or
almost half are African-American.
We blithely pass sentencing, mandatory minimums and
sentencing guidelines without understanding the direct, the
direct and lethal effect we are having on this repair of the
black family. A black woman, who has made the mistake of having
a child out of wedlock is today not inclined to marry the man
if he had a felony record, even though she will accept the fact
that she has his child. And in fact, often wants a child and
sometimes deliberately gets pregnant, I'll have to concede, Mr.
Chairman.
What she will not accept is that her life and the life of
this child ought to be joined with a felon. And the reason
there is such rage in the black community against the
sentencing guidelines and the mandatory minimums is that we are
talking about a generation of drug running, gun running young
black men who were in prison not for violence, but who come out
of the jail very inclined--out of prison, very inclined to it
now.
This is a cycle that is so devastating, that I don't know
how to get a hold of it. So if I were to go back, I would have
asked society to do what it has never done and that is to focus
on men as a vital partner to the economic stability of family,
and to focus some of the time and attention we've given to
welfare reform, making sure the children have enough to simply
make it if they are born without a father, devote some of those
resources to the one partner who throughout human time, this is
not an American notion, throughout human time, has been seen
who should provide for himself and take care of himself.
Our men will provide for themselves and take care of
themselves. They do not necessarily take care of their children
and they do not necessarily marry our women. That is a great
tragedy, it is at total odds with the black family tradition of
extended and nuclear families that survived even the vicious
devastations of slavery and discrimination in this country.
They, our ancestors, bequeathed us this love of family and
now we have destroyed it in a single generation. We simply have
to put it back together for them.
Senator Brownback. That's very insightful. Delegate, thank
you very much. I'll look forward to working with you as this
proposal hopefully moves forward, and if it works, as we expand
it. Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much again, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. I call up the next panel to testify, Mr.
Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Mr.
Malcolm Smith, Director of Operations for the Center for
Fathers, Families and Workforce Development in Baltimore,
Reverend Thabiti Anyabwile, Assistant Pastor, Capitol Hill
Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and a former Senior Policy
Associate for the Study of Social Policy in the District of
Columbia, Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, Assistant Professor of
Sociology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville and a
Resident Fellow at the Institute for American Values in New
York.
I look forward to the testimony, if we could, gentlemen,
have a summation of your testimonies so we could have a few
questions back and forth. We will put, as I said, a full
written statement into the record so we will have that for the
record. Mr. Haskins.
STATEMENT OF RON HASKINS, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Haskins. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am Ron
Haskins from the Brookings Institution, Annie E. Casey
Foundation. I am a former staff for the Ways and Means
Committee and an advisor for President Bush on welfare policy.
I am very pleased to be invited today.
I think we are at the beginning, maybe a little beyond the
beginning of a national movement of concern with the status of
our families. It got a real boost in 1996 when we passed the
welfare reform bill and we made three of the four goals of
welfare reform explicitly to be family centric, of having to do
with children living with married parents.
And the question rises, ``Why are we so concerned about
this?'' And I think you've already answered this question. One
of the major reasons is that marriage, as an institution, has
declined remarkably in our country and throughout the western
world. Our marriage rates are down, they are especially down
for minorities. For blacks, they look like they fell off the
table. More of our children are born outside marriage, that's
leveled off now, but at an alarming rate of roughly one out of
three kids.
And if you put all these together, over time even though
you showed that about a little over one-quarter of our kids
live in single parent families, that's at any given moment.
Over time, as many as 60 percent of American children spend
some time in a single parent family. And for black children,
that number is at least 85 percent. Especially in some inner
cities in the United States.
Now why are we concerned about that? One reason you've
already given, you've already shown and that is poverty. There
is no question, as you've pointed out, that kids that live in
female headed families are five, six, seven times as likely, it
depends on the year, to be in poverty.
Now, this analysis, the reason that I wanted to show this
to you is because I think it suggests how close to a solution
marriage really is. This analysis is based on actual people
living in the United States, taken from regular Census Bureau
data from a current population survey. And it takes the actual
sample and it says, ``What happens if we change one
characteristic at a time of all the people who are poor, so
look just at the poor people and change one characteristic.''
So let's assume that they had the same marriage rate that
they had in 1970 and then let's assume that they all work full
time at whatever wage they actually get or their education
would allow them to get, and let's do away with anybody below
high school education. Make sure everybody has at least a high
school education. And estimate using the statistical methods,
what impact that would have and I think you can see the
remarkable results here.
If everyone worked full time, 42 percent fewer people would
be in poverty. And the second most important is increasing
marriage. If we increase the marriage rate, now this is not
some pie in the sky, this is the actual marriage rate we had in
the United States in 1970, would reduce poverty by 27 percent.
So what a shock this is. The traditional solutions of
society of ensuring their people work and they are married and
the kids are reared in a married two parent families, with at
least one working parent. Those are the two most effective
solutions to dealing with poverty. And now we know, you may
recall, 3 weeks ago, you came to Brookings and talked and that
was the occasion you released this volume of the Future of
Children.
There are eight papers in this volume, all by leading
scholars in the United States. We made a mistake, and didn't
add Brad Wilcox, we should have had him in the volume. And all
the papers show the same thing. That kids in female headed
families and single parent families are at a very distinct
disadvantage.
And this shows up in mental health, not just poverty, but
mental health, school performance, criminal behavior, teen
pregnancy and lots of other things as well. And there is no
question, if you look at this whole picture that I've just
painted, of poverty and of the effects on children, there is
every reason to believe that if we could reduce the percentage
of our kids in single parent families, that without Government
spending and taxing other citizens, we would have a dramatic
effect both of poverty and reducing the most serious problems,
social problems that our country faces.
So what do we do about it. And this is the rub, Mr.
Chairman, we don't know. We don't have any confirmed solutions.
This is not like welfare reform where what works is working, if
you make people work--and by the way, worked out very well--
everybody talks about poverty increased the last 4 years. Do
you know that after 4 consecutive years of increase in poverty,
child poverty is still 20 percent lower than it was in the mid-
1990s and it's definitely because of females working.
Delegate Norton is right. The males have not worked more,
but females remarkably have worked more and it has worked. So
we can do the same thing with marriage if we can figure out how
to promote it but we don't know how. So, what do we do? The
solution is obvious. Let 1,000 flowers bloom. We should try
everything we can think of.
The first way to do that is to pass the welfare reform
reauthorization bill, which has substantial money in there to
fund faith-based organizations and local organizations, many of
which you will hear from today, who know what they are doing
and can work on local communities. And if we do this long
enough, we will get those solutions as Eleanor Holmes Norton
applied.
And the second thing we should do is, I definitely think we
should pass your legislation. I think this is a unique
approach, not very many have tried this. I want you to know
this, you may already know this, that we now have experimental
evidence for the first time on individual development accounts,
and we know that poor people will put their meager earnings
into a development account if it's matched. So we have very
good data that they will actually do that, that's the condition
for the success of your approach. So we definitely should do
that.
I would make only two points about your proposal. The first
one is that, I think, I'm a little concerned about the $50,000,
I'm more worried about people at $20,000 to $25,000. That's the
group that has the biggest trouble and I'm worried that when
that money gets out there, that people--too much money will be
a problem. That's my concern.
And my second concern, I was very pleased to hear Eleanor
Holmes Norton say this, ``There must be a good evaluation.''
When you let 1,000 flowers bloom, you've got to cull them at
some point. And it should be based on real studies and real
information of about how successful they are.
So I know you have language in there about evaluation, but
unless it's beefed up and some money is set aside, I'm afraid
it will not be a good evaluation. We'd be happy to work further
with you and the staff on the subcommittee, if you're
interested in this. I thank you very much for having me here,
Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you for your thoughts.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ron Haskins
Chairman Brownback, Ranking Member Landrieu, and Members of the
Subcommittee: My name is Ron Haskins. I am a Senior Fellow at the
Brookings Institution and a Senior Consultant at the Annie E. Casey
Foundation. Thanks for inviting me to talk with your subcommittee about
the case for federal programs to promote marriage in general and the
Brownback proposal for the District of Columbia in particular. My first
goal is to briefly summarize the evidence from social science research
about the impact of marriage on poverty and on children's development.
There is widespread agreement among social scientists that marriage
reduces poverty and helps make both children and adults happier and
healthier. It is reasonable to project from these studies that if
marital rates could be increased, many of the nation's social problems,
including poverty, school failure, crime, mental health problems, and
nonmarital births, would be reduced. Unfortunately, there is little
good information available about ways to promote marriage. That is why
I am so pleased to testify before you today. The Brownback proposal for
Marriage Development Accounts and for Pre-Marriage Development Accounts
is an interesting approach to increasing rates of healthy marriage that
holds great promise and that should be implemented and carefully
studied.
America is engaged in a great experiment to test whether millions
of our children can be properly reared without providing them with a
stable, two-parent environment during childhood. For the past four
decades, the demographic markers of stable two-parent families have
disintegrated. Marriage rates have declined precipitously, divorce
rates rose and then stabilized at a high level, and nonmarital births
increased dramatically at a rapid rate until roughly the mid-1990s and
have continued to increase, albeit at a slower rate, since then.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ David T. Ellwood and Christopher Jencks, The Growing Difference
in Family Structure: What Do We Know? Where Do We Look for Answers?
Unpublished manuscript (Cambridge: John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the first social scientists to notice these developments was
an obscure sociologist in the Department of Labor by the name of Daniel
Patrick Moynihan. In 1965 he wrote a famous paper on the black family,
arguing that family dissolution was the major reason black Americans
were not making more social and economic progress in America.\2\ At
that time, the nonmarital birth rate for blacks was around 25 percent.
Today the percentage for blacks is 70. Now both Hispanics, at about 45
percent, and whites, at about 25 percent, equal or exceed the level of
nonmarital births that Moynihan saw as alarming. Indeed, over 33
percent of all our nation's children are now born outside marriage--
well above the rate Moynihan saw as alarming in 1965.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for
National Action (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1965).
\3\ Stephanie J. Ventura and others, ``Nonmarital Childbearing in
the United States, 1940-99,'' National Vital Statistics Reports 48, No.
16 (Washington: National Center for Health Statistics, 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taken together, nonmarriage, nonmarital births, and divorce have
caused a rapidly increasing percentage of the nation's children to live
in single-parent families. As shown in Figure 1, between 1970 and 2002
the percentage of children living with just one parent more than
doubled, increasing from 12 percent to over 27 percent.\4\ Of course,
Figure 1 provides the number of children living in single-parent
families at a given moment. Over time, the percentage of children who
have ever experienced life outside a two-parent family is much greater
than the percentage on a given day. The percentage of children who
spend some portion of their childhood in a single parent family has
probably increased to well over 50 percent and has reached the shocking
level of at least 85 percent for black children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics,
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2005
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 2005); and
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and
Economic Supplements.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Most of the nation's single parents make heroic efforts to
establish a good rearing environment for their children. But they are
up against many obstacles and challenges. Not the least of these is
poverty. Figure 2 shows the poverty rate of female-headed families with
children as compared with married-couple families with children between
1974 and 2002.\5\ In most years, children living with a single mother
suffer from poverty rates that are five or six times the rates of
children living with married parents. Children living with never-
married single mothers have even higher poverty rates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey,
various years.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Although this difference in poverty rates between single-parent and
married-couple families is impressive, it is now well known that
poverty is far from the only difference between single-parent and
married-couple families. Single parents are more likely to have had a
baby outside marriage, are more likely to have had poor parents and
parents with little education, and are more likely to be black or
Hispanic. All of these background characteristics contribute to the
difference in poverty rates between married and single parents and
raise some doubt about whether marital status itself causes the
difference in poverty rates.
This is a vital issue for members of Congress trying to decide
whether a marriage initiative would be worthwhile. One of the major
claims of those who support a marriage initiative is that increasing
marriage rates would reduce poverty rates. Fortunately, there have now
been a large number of studies, some quite sophisticated, on whether
marriage itself, independent of all the other differences between
married and single parents, is a cause of the lower poverty rates
enjoyed by married parents and their children. Taken together, these
studies provide evidence that increasing marriage rates would indeed
reduce poverty.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Robert I. Lerman, Impacts of Marital Status and Parental
Presence on the Material Hardship of Families with Children
(Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2002); Robert I. Lerman, Married
and Unmarried Parenthood and Economic Well-Being: A Dynamic Analysis of
a Recent Cohort (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2002); Robert I.
Lerman, How Do Marriage, Cohabitation, and Single Parenthood Affect the
Material Hardships of Families with Children? (Washington, D.C.: Urban
Institute, 2002); and Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill, ``For Love and
Money? The Impact of Family Structure on Family Income,'' Future of
Children, vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2005):57-74.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A closer look at two of these studies will illustrate the power of
marriage as a means of reducing poverty. Research at the Brookings
Institution by Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill examined the impact of
various changes in family composition and parent characteristics on
poverty rates.\7\ Specifically, Thomas and Sawhill used Census Bureau
data from 2001 to determine the degree to which child poverty would be
reduced by full time work, marriage, increased education, reduced
family size, and doubling welfare benefits. Their analysis shows that
increasing work effort and increasing marriage rates would have the
greatest impacts on poverty (Figure 3).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill, ``For Richer or for Poorer:
Marriage as an Antipoverty Strategy,'' Journal of Policy Analysis and
Management, vol. 21, no. 4 (September 2002): 587-599; and Ron Haskins
and Isabel Sawhill, Work and Marriage: The Way to End Poverty and
Welfare, WR&B Policy Brief No. 28 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2003).
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
The relationship between work and poverty reduction is especially
impressive. Poor parents work about half as many hours as nonpoor
parents.\8\ The Brookings analysis shows that if poor parents were to
work full time at the wages they currently earn (for those who work) or
could earn (based on their education for those who don't work), the
poverty rate would plummet from 13 percent to 7.5 percent, a reduction
of nearly 45 percent. If the single most potent antidote to poverty is
work, marriage is not far behind. The likelihood of being married is a
striking difference between the poor and the non-poor. The poor are
only half as likely to be married as the nonpoor--40 percent for the
poor as compared with 80 percent for the nonpoor.\9\ Of course, the
adults in these families differ in other ways as well, so the huge
difference in poverty rates between married couples and single parents
cannot be attributed solely to marital status. The Brookings simulation
examined the poverty impact of an increase in marriage rates among the
poor without changing any of their other characteristics. Specifically,
the simulation increased the marriage rate to the rate that prevailed
in 1970. Between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate declined by
17 percent while the marriage rate for blacks declined by over 34
percent. The simulation works by matching single mothers and unmarried
men who are similar in age, education, and race. In other words, these
virtual marriages take place between real single males and single
mothers with children who report their status to the Census Bureau.
Thus, the actual incomes of real single men, who are paired with real
single mothers on the basis of demographic similarities are used in the
analysis. All that changes is marital status.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill, Work and Marriage: The Way to
End Poverty and Welfare, WR&B Policy Brief No. 28 (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings, 2003).
\9\ Daniel Lichter, Deborah R. Graefe, and J. Brian Brown, ``Is
Marriage a Panacea? Union Formation among Economically Disadvantaged
Unwed Mothers,'' Paper presented at annual meeting of the Population
Association of America, March 29-31, 2001, in Washington, D.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The effect of the increase in marriages to the rate that prevailed
in 1970 is to reduce the poverty rate from 13.0 percent to 9.5 percent,
a reduction of 27 percent (Figure 3). Although not as great as the
impact of full-time work, increasing the marriage rate nonetheless has
a very substantial impact on poverty.
A second example of the impact of marriage on poverty is provided
by a series of studies conducted by Robert Lerman of the Urban
Institute in Washington, D.C. In separate studies, Lerman used three
national data sets that capture information on representative samples
of the U.S. population. According to a summary prepared by Kelleen Kaye
of the Department of Health and Human Services, Lerman's studies show
that:
--Married families with two biological parents have lower rates of
poverty and material hardship, even after controlling for other
factors such as education and race, than any other type of
family including single parents and cohabiting parents. Even in
the case of families with lower levels of education, those
headed by married biological parents are better off than either
single parents or cohabiting parents.
--Married biological parents provide a more stable rearing
environment for their children and are able to weather hard
times better than single or cohabiting couples in part because
they receive more assistance from friends, family, and
community.
--Marriage itself makes actions that limit hardship--better
budgeting, planning, pulling together in a crisis--more common,
even among people with similarly low income and education.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Kelleen Kaye, Effects of Marriage on Family Economic Well-
being: Summary (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, 2004).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As illustrated by the Brookings study and the Lerman research,
scholarly work finds that marriage reduces poverty and material
hardship even when other differences between single and married parents
are controlled and even when the analysis is confined to low-income
families. But another benefit of marriage may be of even greater
interest to the members of the Appropriations Committee. Since 1994,
with publication of a seminal volume on children in single-parent
families by Sara McLanahan of Princeton and Gary Sandefur of the
University of Wisconsin, there has been growing agreement among
researchers that children do best in married, two-parent families.\11\
More recently, an entire issue of the journal The Future of Children,
published jointly by Brookings and Princeton University, was devoted to
the effects of marriage on child well-being. The journal contains eight
original articles that explore trends in marriage and evidence on the
impact of marriage on children. As the editors of the journal conclude
in their introduction, the best evidence currently available shows that
marriage ``continues to be the most effective family structure in which
to raise children.'' \12\ Children who grow up in married two-parent
families achieve higher levels of education, are less likely to become
teen parents, and are less likely to have behavioral or health
problems. As with studies of family economic well-being, many factors
other than family composition contribute to these outcomes. Even so,
when social scientists use statistical techniques to control for these
other differences, children from single-parent families still show
these educational, social, and health problems to a greater degree than
children reared by married biological parents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single
Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1994).
\12\ Sara McLanahan, Elisabeth Donahue, and Ron Haskins,
``Introducing the Issue: Marriage and Child Wellbeing,'' Future of
Children, vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 10-12; and Ron Haskins, Sara
McLanahan, and Elisabeth Donahue, ``The Decline in Marriage: What To
Do,'' Future of Children Policy Brief, Fall 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nor are children the only members of families whose well-being is
affected by marriage. As shown in a recent book by Linda Waite of the
University of Chicago and Maggie Gallagher of the Institute for
American Values in New York, marriage confers a wide range of benefits
on adults.\13\ Based largely on their review of the empirical
literature, Waite and Gallagher find that people who get and stay
married live longer, have better health, have higher earnings and
accumulate more assets, rate themselves as happier and more satisfied
with their sex lives, and have happier and healthier children than
people who don't marry or people who divorce their spouses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage (New
York: Doubleday, 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taken together, empirical studies provide a strong case for the
benefits of marriage. If marriage rates could be increased, it can be
predicted with some confidence that poverty rates would decline; that
children would improve their school achievement, have fewer teen
pregnancies, and have better health and mental health; and that adults
would live longer, be happier, be more productive, be wealthier, and be
more effective parents.
What To Do
But how can rates of healthy marriage be increased? I believe it is
a good thing that this question is now a leading issue of public policy
at both the federal and state level. If policymakers, community
leaders, and parents can figure out the answer, we will ``promote the
general welfare'' of the nation.
We should begin with a frank assessment of the evidence on marriage
promotion. If the evidence on the benefits of marriage is strong, the
evidence on good ways to promote marriage is modest. Thus, I would
propose a three-part strategy to the committee: jaw-boning, continuing
the already strong record of creating programs to reduce nonmarital
births, and creating programs with the explicit goal of promoting
healthy marriages.
Jaw-Boning.--Congress has already taken several actions to focus
the public's attention on the importance of family composition to the
nation's general welfare. The 1996 welfare reform law was perhaps the
first time that Congress forcefully brought the issue of family
composition to public attention. Not only did the law contain several
provisions intended to reduce nonmarital births, but the law converted
the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program into the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and gave it four
specific goals. Three of the four goals address family composition;
namely, reducing dependence on welfare by promoting work and marriage,
reducing nonmarital pregnancies, and encouraging the formation and
maintenance of two-parent families. Thus, reducing nonmarital births,
increasing marriage rates, and increasing the percentage of children
reared by their married biological parents have been explicit goals of
federal policy since 1966.
Thanks in large part to the Bush administration, Congress is now
returning to family composition as a major part of the debate on
reauthorizing the 1996 welfare reform law. This debate has once again
forcefully brought the issue of family composition to public attention
and has ignited an intense discussion that is being taken up, not just
in Congress, but on the nation's editorial pages and in campaigns for
political office around the country. If the years of Congressional
debate on the importance of work as a replacement for welfare is any
example, this kind of public debate serves the vital purpose of
clarifying the nation's values on marriage and child rearing and
reminding the public of how important it is to preserve and promote
marriage and two-parent families. Using the bully pulpit to emphasize
the importance of marriage for the well-being of our children, and even
more broadly, to generate public discussion of the vital role of
marriage in our culture, is one of the most worthy uses of the
reservoir of respect and trust held by our elected officials and other
community leaders.
Reducing Nonmarital Births.--In addition to promoting public debate
on the value of marriage, Congress should continue its efforts to
reduce nonmarital births. Research shows clearly that having a child
outside marriage, in addition to portending numerous problems for both
the mother and child, substantially reduces the likelihood that the
mother will subsequently marry.\14\ Nonmarital birth is precisely the
problem that Senator Moynihan emphasized in his infamous paper nearly
four decades ago. Unfortunately, Congress waited many years before
doing anything about the problem, but several important programs are
now underway. Until Congress passed the 1996 welfare reform law, these
programs were aimed almost exclusively at reducing nonmarital births
through family planning. But the 1996 welfare reform law contained
several provisions designed to reduce nonmarital births through the use
of other strategies. These included allowing states to stop increasing
the size of welfare checks when mothers on welfare have babies,
allowing states to deny cash benefits to unmarried mothers,
strengthening paternity establishment requirements and child support
enforcement, requiring teen mothers to live under adult supervision and
to continue attending school or lose their cash welfare benefit, giving
a cash bonus to states that reduce their nonmarital pregnancy rate, and
establishing a new program of abstinence education.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Daniel Lichter, Deborah R. Graefe, and J. Brian Brown, ``Is
Marriage a Panacea? Union Formation among Economically Disadvantaged
Unwed Mothers,'' Paper presented at annual meeting of the Population
Association of America, March 29-31, 2001, in Washington, D.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The abstinence education program has now been implemented in every
state except California and has been substantially expanded by
legislation enacted in 1997. Congress also enacted legislation
requiring that the abstinence education program be subjected to a
scientific evaluation. The Mathematica Policy Research firm of
Princeton, New Jersey has published results for the first year of
operation of four abstinence education program.\15\ First year results
are confined to whether the programs had impacts on attitudes such as
opinions about abstinence, teen sex, and marriage as well as to views
about peer influences, self-concept, ability to refuse sexual advances,
and perceived consequences of teen sex. Following these adolescents as
they move through the teen years will yield information on whether the
programs cause adolescents to delay sex, to have sex less frequently
and with fewer partners, and to avoid pregnancy. Meanwhile, the Bush
administration has adopted the policy of expanding abstinence programs
until the amount of money the federal government spends on abstinence
is roughly equal to the amount spent on family planning.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Rebecca A. Maynard and others. First-Year Impacts of Four
Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs (Princeton, NJ:
Mathematica Policy Research, June 2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent reviews of research have found that a variety of programs,
including programs that promote abstinence and family planning,
programs that involve youth in constructive activities after school,
and programs that emphasize service learning are effective in reducing
sexual activity among teens.\16\ A recent study conducted by
researchers from the Centers for Disease Control reached the conclusion
that the decline in teen pregnancy is due about half to delayed
initiation of sexual intercourse among youth and half to improved
contraception.\17\ Based on this study, it seems wise to continue
funding for abstinence programs, family planning programs, and youth
development and service programs until better information is available
showing that one of these approaches produces superior results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Jennifer Manlove, Angela Romano Papillio, and Erum Ikramullah,
Not Yet: Programs to Delay First Sex among Teens (Washington, D.C.:
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, September 2004); and
Jennifer Manlove and others, A Good Time: After-School Programs to
Reduce Teen Pregnancy (Washington, D.C.: National Campaign to Prevent
Teen Pregnancy, January 2004).
\17\ John S. Santelli and others, ``Can Changes in Sexual Behaviors
among High School Students Explain the Decline in Teen Pregnancy Rates
in the 1990s?'' Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 35 (August 2004):
80-90.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
That public policy and private action is producing favorable
results already is undeniable. The birth rate to teenagers has fallen
every year since 1991 and has declined by a little less one-third
during that period.\18\ This is exceptionally good news. In addition,
the nonmarital birth rate among all women leveled off in 1995 after
more than three decades of continuous growth and has increased only
slightly since then. There is still a great deal of room for
improvement, but progress is being made.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics,
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2005, p. 10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the more reason the federal government, working with the
states, should continue and even expand its campaign against nonmarital
births. Policies that support both family planning and abstinence
education should be continued. One issue that deserves attention,
however, is whether all entities receiving federal support are making a
serious effort to offer an abstinence message. There are indications
that many programs, especially Title X clinics, dispense birth control
without engaging recipients in a full assessment of the health and
other consequences of sexual activity. It would also be appropriate,
especially for older clients, to discuss the advantages of marriage
with those who indicate some interest in marriage in response to
standard inquiries. If the website of the Title X program is any
example, any thought about abstinence or marriage is beyond the purview
of Title X clinics.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Melissa G. Pardue, Robert E. Rector, and Shannan Martin,
Government Spends $12 on Safe Sex and Contraceptives for Every $1 Spent
on Abstinence, Backgrounder No. 1718 (Washington, D.C.: Heritage
Foundation, January 14, 2004).
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Fund Healthy Marriage Programs.--The third component of a federal
strategy to promote healthy marriages is to fund programs that aim
explicitly to either reduce divorce or promote healthy marriage among
unmarried couples, especially those that have had or are expecting to
have a baby. The proposals adopted by the House and the Senate in their
respective welfare reform reauthorization bills would provide an
excellent start toward establishing programs of this type. State and
local governments and private organizations, including faith-based
organizations, could participate, thereby preventing the federal
government from directly conducting the programs. Further, both bills
make it clear that only states, organizations, and individuals who want
to participate would do so. No program of mandatory marriage education
or other pro-marriage activity should be funded. Similarly, in awarding
funds on a competitive basis, the Department of Health and Human
Services should continue its policy of ensuring that programs consider
the issue of domestic violence and make provisions for addressing it
where necessary. Finally, because we know so little about marriage-
promotion programs, especially with poor and low-income families, the
Department should insist that all projects have good evaluation
designs, based on random assignment where possible. Our primary goal
over the next decade or so should be to learn what works and for whom.
Research has already produced good evidence that marriage education
programs can be effective in the short run in improving communication,
reducing conflict, and increasing happiness. Most of these programs
have been implemented with married couples that are not poor, but there
is good reason to believe that the short-term benefits of marriage
education would be achieved with poor families as well.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ M. Robin Dion, ``Healthy Marriage Programs: What Works,''
Future of Children, vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2005):139-156.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many states and private organizations appear to be ready and able
to work specifically with poor and low-income unmarried parents. For
their part, the early evidence indicates that poor couples would
willingly participate in these programs. Sara McLanahan at Princeton
and a host of top researchers around the nation are conducting a large-
scale study of couples that have children outside marriage.\21\ The
couples are disproportionately poor and from minority groups. This
important research has already exploded several myths about couples
that have nonmarital births. First, about 80 percent of the couples are
involved exclusively with each other in a romantic relationship. In
fact, about half of the couples live together. Couples that produce
nonmarital births, in other words, typically do not have casual
relationships. Second, a large majority of both the mothers and fathers
think about marriage and say that they would like to be married to each
other. Third, most of the fathers earn more money than the myth of
destitute and idle young males would have us believe. Although nearly
20 percent of the fathers were idle in the week before the child's
birth, showing that employment is a problem for some of these men, the
mean income of fathers was nonetheless over $17,000. Fourth, almost all
the fathers say they want to be involved with their child--and almost
all the mothers want them to be. If these young parents are
romantically involved, if most say they are interested in marriage and
want the father to be involved with the child, and if most have the
economic assets that could provide a decent financial basis for
marriage, then why don't more of these young couples marry? It would
make great sense for states and private, especially faith-based,
organizations to mount programs that attempt to help these young
couples make progress toward marriage. The Department of Health and
Human Services is already funding research programs of this type, but
more such programs should be undertaken all over the nation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Sara McLanahan and others, The Fragile Families and Child
Wellbeing Study Baseline Report (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Center for
Research on Child Wellbeing, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new entry on the scene of healthy marriage programs is Senator
Brownback's proposal to initiate Marriage Development Accounts and pre-
Marriage Development Accounts in the District of Columbia. Under this
proposal, two new programs would provide low-income married and engaged
couples with savings accounts that would provide a match of $3 from
public and private sources for every $1 saved. The matched part of the
account must be spent on job training or education, purchasing a home,
or starting a business. Both financial and marriage counseling would
also be available to the couples.
Matched savings accounts for low-income adults, often called
``individual development accounts,'' appear to be growing in popularity
as an important method to help poor and low-income workers improve
their economic status. Recent high-quality research on matched savings
accounts shows that low-income individuals will put part of their
meager earnings in savings accounts if the savings are matched. There
is also some evidence, especially for black participants, that the
accounts are used to increase home ownership.\22\ These effects were
not huge, but they are encouraging for those who believe that
increasing savings and investing the money in education, home
ownership, or business ventures would help poor and low-income families
work their way up the economic ladder.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Ray Boshara, Individual Development Accounts: Policies to
Build Savings and Assets for the Poor WR&B Brief No. 32 (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings, March 2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These results suggest that young married couples and young couples
involved in a close relationship but not yet married may respond to the
incentive effects of having a matched savings account by continuing
their marriage or close relationship and perhaps, in the latter case,
by taking steps toward marriage. But there is a second aspect of the
Brownback development account idea that could also have an important
effect on the relationship between these couples. Many researchers and
practitioners who work with poor couples believe that a major barrier
to healthy marriage for them is economic uncertainty. As the noted
researcher Kathy Edin of the University of Pennsylvania has concluded
from her interviews with young unmarried mothers, there are plenty of
other issues, such as empathy and trust, that interfere with these
couples continuing their relationship.\23\ But both Edin and other
researchers have come to regard poverty, unemployment, and inconsistent
employment and income as serious barriers as well. Young low-income
couples often tell interviewers they are thinking about marriage but
they want to achieve stable employment and have enough money to make a
down payment on a house before they actually get married. Thus, the
Brownback initiative is responsive to what the couples themselves say
they need before they would become serious about marriage.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor
Women Put Motherhood before Marriage (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another important advantage of the Brownback initiative is that the
program does not reduce funds already available for poor single
families. In the three years since the Bush administration unveiled its
marriage education proposal, advocates for single mothers have made the
very useful point that marriage initiatives should not be financed by
cutting programs for single mothers. Well over a quarter of American
children now live in single-parent families, a disproportionate share
of which are poor. Even if marriage programs are successful, most of
these children will continue to live in single-parent families for the
foreseeable future. Given these facts, reducing government support for
single-parent families to fund initiatives for marriage makes little
sense. The Brownback proposal meets this criterion because it
appropriates new money from the federal budget.
There is another important and reasonable concern about the
Brownback proposal that is being voiced by women's advocates.
Specifically, there is a belief that some poor mothers may be tempted
by the prospect of the Brownback matched development accounts to stay
in a bad relationship too long. The worst case under this view is women
staying in violent relationships. Both research and the experience of
people working in this field show that violence is a serious problem
among some cohabiting and married partners.\24\ While not minimizing
this concern, at least two points should be made in considering
government healthy-marriage programs and violence. First, the federal
government has worked hard and spent billions of dollars to reduce
marriage penalties in the tax code. A recent study by Gregory Acs and
Elaine Maag of the Urban Institute shows that most low-income
cohabiting parents (below 200 percent of poverty) would receive a bonus
of about $2,400 from tax provisions if they got married.\25\ Thus,
federal tax policy already contains considerable financial incentive
for parents to marry. Second, the Brownback proposal provides a cash
incentive of $300 for couples to attend four marriage counseling
classes. Research suggests that classes of this type often provide a
forum for abuse to be reported and for couples to receive counseling.
Many, perhaps most, of these programs counsel the female to leave the
relationship if violence is serious or continues.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Andrew Cherlin and others, ``Domestic Abuse and Patterns of
Marriage and Cohabitation: Evidence from a Multi-Method Study,''
presented at the conference ``Marriage and Family Formation among Low-
Income Couples: What Do We Know from Research?'' sponsored by the
National Poverty Center (Washington, D.C., September 2003); and John
Gottman and Neil Jacobson, When Men Batter Women: New Insights into
Ending Abusive Relationships (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1998).
\25\ Gregory Acs and Elain Maag, Irreconcilable Differences? The
Conflict between Marriage Promition Initiatives for Cohabiting Couples
with Children and Marriage Penalties in Tax and Transfer Programs
(Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, April 2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the Brownback proposal seems on its face to be a wise
investment of public funds to attack one of the nation's leading social
problems, it is essential that part of the money be used to conduct
research on the effects of the program. The marriage movement in the
United States has had considerable success in convincing people that
married parents provide the best rearing environment for children and
that nonmarital births are a deeply serious national problem. Moreover,
many policymakers and other opinion leaders believe that government
investments in activities intended to remove barriers to marriage and
to promote healthy marriage are reasonable. But what is needed now is
evidence that programs actually can have impacts in reducing nonmarital
births, increasing marriage, and producing positive impacts on the
development and well-being of children. Thus, I would strongly
recommend that the Brownback evaluation language be beefed up to set
aside at least $100,000 of the appropriated funds to conduct research
on the effects of the programs, using random assignment designs if
possible. Only in this way will the proposal have the intended effect
of increasing knowledge about what actually works to increase marriage
rates and produce positive impacts on children.
STATEMENT OF DR. MALCOLM SMITH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS,
CENTER FOR FATHERS, FAMILIES AND WORKFORCE
DEVELOPMENT, BALTIMORE, MD
Senator Brownback. Mr. Smith.
Dr. Smith. Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to
testify today. I want to begin by saying that this is the most
critical issue facing the African-American community today. The
formation of families and our ability to rear children in two
parent households is of the utmost importance.
Some of the issues that Delegate Norton alluded to such as
incarceration, poverty, crime and the ills thereof, I believe
all stem from children who are reared in homes without access
to both the economic and emotional benefits of both parents.
The Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development is a
nonprofit. I'm located in Baltimore, Maryland.
We're primarily African-American and serve an African-
American population. Prior to the implementation of welfare
reform, marriage wasn't even on our agenda, it wasn't on our
radar. We primarily provided workforce development, responsible
fatherhood as well as co-parenting service for our fathers and
families.
But what we found was, there were members of our client
population who were deeply interested in maintaining an intact
family unit. We stumbled upon a request, a long-term family
that we serve requested to get married at our office. You know,
it was wonderful for us, we would've enjoyed the opportunity to
support them.
However, we were immediately confronted with their life
challenges. Duane and Brenda Grimes, who had also testified, I
believe, before this subcommittee some time ago, were drug
addicts, they were in recovery. They had low income levels,
they had six children between them. But nonetheless, they
wanted to form a family.
We supported their decision, we stepped up to the challenge
and 4 years later, Duane and Brenda are still together. Not
without their challenges because, for many of us who are
married, we know marriage is a benefit and it is also a
challenge.
But nonetheless, what we found from this experience is that
low income, poor African-Americans in Baltimore City were
deeply interested in the issue of marriage. Prior to taking
this on, we somewhat assumed there was trepidation on their
part. Once we began the process of community engagement,
working with the clergy, working with community leaders, what
we immediately found was that we had missed the boat. We missed
the ball on what they wanted to do for their own families, what
they wanted to do for their communities and for their children.
Since then we've implemented the Building Strong Families
(BSF) Demonstration Project and Partnership with the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, Brookings Institution and Mathematical Policy
Research. In this demonstration, the goal of which is to
determine the efficacy of marriage interventions, I wish, for
the sake of the families that are enrolled in BSF, we had
access to marriage development accounts.
It's my firm belief and the firm belief of my organization,
that marriage development accounts would assist in reducing the
economic and policy disincentives to low income couples to
marry. There are a number of provisions that are currently in
place that make it almost not very smart for low income moms
and dads to come together.
Senator Brownback. What are those?
Dr. Smith. For example, even though welfare reform provided
for two parent households in the calculation of benefits, when
introducing an additional income, it substantially reduces the
food stamp benefit, the TANF benefit as well as access to
public housing for low income couples.
So if we're speaking about a mom and a dad, who combined
have an income of about $30,000 and two children between them,
they live in the District of Columbia, you really have to do
the math. What can they afford in rent? What can they afford in
food? And so the subsidies that the mom receives on her part,
including the earned income tax credit, food stamps and TANF
far outweigh the benefit of having a male in the household.
However, there is a benefit. There's an emotional benefit,
there is a benefit, especially for a male child of having a
male in the household. Especially for a young girl, when a
young girl begins to develop, who will be her role model for
the man she will have in the future? It's typically the father.
And so the people in the families we work with, they have
to balance the future outcomes against the realities right now.
And the reality right now is that they have to feed their
families, keep a roof over their heads and ensure that their
children have clothes on their back.
And a marriage development account would provide or counter
some of the policy and economic disincentives that are
currently in place, that almost disparage, that almost counters
the thinking in their wants and their hopes for their
children's advancement.
Senator Brownback. Let me ask you a quick question. If you
were to change these factors, then would you make them neutral
or try to make them positive for marriage of low income
couples, when you're talking about food stamps, TANF, low
income housing, earned income tax credit.
Dr. Smith. Oh, I would make them positive. The research
from the Fragile Families and Child Welfare Study has indicated
that there is a magic moment when a mom and a dad are together,
they are in a relationship and that's also the same moment
where they engage the social welfare system.
If we could make it possible that if this was a married
couple, an intact family unit, their access to public subsidies
wouldn't be denied, I think it will provide them with the
bridge that they need to go from being in poverty to somewhere
closer to economic self-sufficiency, and we would have the
value added of keeping the family intact.
Senator Brownback. Good, sorry to interrupt. You really
caught my eye on the--it's been my view of Government for some
period of time, everybody acts economically rational, I don't
care where they are in the system, they act economically
rational. So if the economic incentives are contrary, they act
economically rational and where the incentives are, take them.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of D. Malcolm Smith
Chairman Brownback and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for
providing me with the opportunity to testify. I am Donald Malcolm
Smith, Director of Operations for the Center for Fathers, Families and
Workforce Development (CFWD). CFWD is a community based nonprofit
organization established in 1999 that provides workforce development,
responsible fatherhood and family services to the low-income residents
of Baltimore City.
When CFWD was created, we could not have imagined that we would be
a part of a demonstration project to assess the efficacy of marriage
interventions for low-income parents or that we would be at the
forefront of providing healthy relationship and marriage services to
families in Baltimore City. Nonetheless, we have found ourselves at the
center of what we believe is one of the most critical issues
confronting the African-American community and our society in general:
how can we encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent
families?
Nine years ago with the enactment of welfare reform, Congress
implemented the most sweeping changes to our nation's social welfare
system since the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. While
there was some consternation among service providers and advocates,
there is now common agreement that the policy changes brought about by
welfare reform have greatly enhanced the lives of poor children and
families.
Welfare reform brought about a number of shifts; however, none were
as broad and as far reaching as the law's attention to family
formation, having explicitly stated goals of increasing the number of
two-parent families and encouraging marriage. At the time, CFWD
provided responsible fatherhood services to low-income dads and co-
parenting education to low-income couples, marriage was not yet on our
radar. However, because of an unexpected request from one of the
families we served we were forced to figure out how to respond to the
issue of marriage.
In 2001, Duane and Brenda Grimes invited our President and CEO, Joe
Jones, to their home and informed him that not only did they want to
get married, but wanted get married at our facility. Our thoughts
focused on the family and the challenges they had overcome. Drug
addiction, $30,000 in child support arrearages, six children between
them, and living in public housing with very little income. Duane's and
Brenda's situation mirrored couples throughout our city, but they had
an advantage--an organization that believed in their ability to be
parents and form a family through marriage. We accepted their challenge
and today Duane and Brenda have been married for four years.
From this one request our organization embarked on a series of
activities. Beginning with internal meetings to assess and cultivate
organizational culture; meetings with the clergy; families and
community leaders; the hosting of a citywide community conversation;
the development of the Exploring Relationships and Marriage with
Fragile Families Curriculum for the state of Louisiana and lastly the
implementation of the Building Strong Families Demonstration Project in
partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Brookings Institution
and Mathematica Policy Research. Participation in the Building Strong
Families (BSF) demonstration has provided us the opportunity to build
on the inherent want of mothers and fathers to form families and rear
their children, together. BSF allows us to implement what research has
confirmed--that there is a magic moment on which a lasting relationship
between parents can be constructed and children fare best when reared
in homes free from violence with parents who are married.
I want deeply to tell the committee that the traditional approach
to forming families, where people marry and have children is the norm
in my community, but that simply is not the case. It is the ideal, but
not the reality. These families must be met where they are: living in
challenged communities struggling to provide for their children and
remain together.
Ensuring that low-income parents have the wherewithal to marry and
be good parents, hinges not only on our ability to provide education
and support; but also on our will to remove the policy and economic
disincentives that make marriage less attractive to low-income parents.
Right now in the District of Columbia this body has the opportunity to
provide an economic incentive to low-income parents to fulfill their
dreams, rear their children together and become married. In fact one of
CFWD's clients who was pregnant and in a relationship with her child's
father expressed that marriage was not a consideration because she
would lose the healthcare benefits for herself and soon to be born
child. I am sure that circumstances like these replay themselves in
low-income communities throughout our country.
For low-income parents, the public subsidies they need to survive
(food stamps, public housing, health insurance, etc.) weigh heavily on
their decisions. They must balance paying bills and caring for their
children against getting married. If we had this opportunity in
Baltimore, low-income parents would feel more comfortable about
formalizing there unions. Marriage Development Accounts (MDA's) in
tandem with other income subsidies could provide low-income parents
with the resources they need to form and maintain two parent married
households.
STATEMENT OF DR. W. BRADFORD WILCOX, ASSISTANT
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF
VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA
Senator Brownback. Dr. Wilcox.
Dr. Wilcox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Brad Wilcox
and I'm a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia
and Resident Fellow of the Institute for American Values in New
York City.
Let me quickly answer four questions. One: What has
happened to marriage in the last 50 years? Two: Why does
marriage matter? Three: Why has our society experienced a
retreat from marriage? Four: How might marriage development
accounts strengthen marriage in the District?
First, with regard to the retreat from marriage, as these
charts have indicated early this morning, we've seen a dramatic
retreat from marriage in the last 50 years. In 1960, just 5
percent of kids were born outside of marriage. Today, more that
one-third are. We've also seen similar increases in divorce.
What many Americans don't always realize is that minorities
and the poor form the brunt of this retreat from marriage.
Rates of non-marital child bearing and divorce are twice or
more among minorities than low income Americans.
The consequence is that we see a marriage divide opening up
in our society, with African-Americans along with working class
and poor Americans, are finding much more difficult than other
Americans to fulfill their dreams of life long marriage.
The second question is, how does marriage or why does
marriage matter? And although marriage as a whole in America
has weakened in the last 50 years, marriage still conveys
important goods to children, families, and the commonwealth. In
a recent report I co-authored with 15 other family scholars, we
found that children that are reared in an intact married family
are about half as likely to suffer from depression, drug abuse,
and to attempt suicide compared to kids reared in single parent
families.
We also find similar trends when it comes to things like
going to prison, and having a pregnancy as a teenager. And I
should also mention here that all of these things control for
things like race, income and education. These are net effects
of family structures. These are some of the reasons why
marriage matters.
But I think we also have to point out here, and what seems
less well known, is that marriage also benefits lower income
and minority communities. For instance, in the words of Harvard
sociologist Robert Sampson, ``family structure is one of the
strongest, if not the strongest predictor of urban violence
across cities in the United States.''
Another new report from the Institute of American Values
focuses on marriage among African-Americans and this report
concludes by observing that marriage, ``Promotes the economic,
social, familial, and psychological well-being of African-
American men and women.'' So the bottom line here is that
marriage matters to the welfare of all Americans, including
poor and minority Americans.
The third question I raise is if marriage is such a good
thing, why is it in retreat? This is obviously a huge question,
but scholars now believe that the retreat from marriage of the
last 50 years is largely rooted in four causes.
First, the normative consequences of the pill and abortion.
Second, the role of feminism and the changing status of women.
Third, declines in men's real wages. And fourth, welfare
policy.
Now, I only have time to focus on the last point and that
is that welfare policy has played a role here in driving down
marriage. For instance, most programs that are designed to
serve the poor that have been added since the 1960s are means
tested, which means that benefits are lowered or eliminated as
household income increases.
Consequently, these programs often penalize the low income
couples who marry. Especially when both spouses bring income
into their relationship. For instance, Gene Sterle at Urban
Institute estimated for the single mother with two children,
who has an income of $15,000 and is dating a cohabitating man
who earns $10,000 would stand to lose almost $2,000 in her
earned income tax benefit, were she to marry.
So there are some real disincentives here built into our
welfare system when it comes to marriage. And these have helped
to propel our retreat from marriage. Finally, on the point
about marriage development accounts, because Federal welfare
policy typically penalizes marriage among lower income couples
and because marriage provides important benefits of such
couples, I welcome your bill to establish marriage development
accounts in the District.
Marriage is particularly fragile among lower income and
minority residents in the District who often face very real
financial penalties if they seek to marry. This bill would help
to reduce the marriage penalty that many residents in the
District face. The bill also indicates that couples who attend
marriage education are eligible for a $300 bonus. Research
shows that education can be helpful in fostering happier, more
stable marriages if this education provides couples with
relationship skills and a normative commitment to marriage
itself.
My hope is that the bill would incorporate both of those
elements, the skills element and the normative commitment
element in that education. In conclusion, this bill is a modest
but important step in the direction of restoring marital sanity
to our Nation's welfare policies. I hope to see more efforts
like this in the near future.
These efforts are particularly important if you wish to
close the marriage divide that has opened up in recent years, a
divide that makes it much more difficult for African-Americans
and lower income citizens and their children to benefit from
the social, emotional, and material advantages of marriage.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, that was very succinct and
strong factual information. I appreciate that, thanks.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of W. Bradford Wilcox, Ph.D.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, for the
opportunity to testify on the role that marriage plays in our society--
especially among African Americans and the poor. My name is Brad Wilcox
and I am a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and a
resident fellow at the Institute for American Values, a research
organization founded in 1987 dedicated to the study of family well-
being and civil society.
My aim this morning is to answer four questions: (1) What has
happened to marriage in the last 50 years?; (2) How does marriage
matter to children, families, and to the commonweal?; (3) Why has our
society experienced a retreat from marriage?; and, (4) How might
Marriage Development Accounts strengthen marriage in the District of
Columbia?
THE RETREAT FROM MARRIAGE
In the last fifty years, the United States has witnessed a dramatic
retreat from marriage. A quick look at the statistics reveals the main
contours of this retreat. In 1960, five percent of children were born
outside of marriage; today, more than one-third of all children are
born outside of marriage.\1\ (In the District of Columbia, 20 percent
of children were born out of wedlock in 1960, whereas today about 57
percent of children are born out of wedlock.) \2\ In 1960, 69 percent
of adults were married, whereas today only 55 percent of adults are
married. Finally, the divorce rate for first marriages stood at about
20 percent in 1960; today the divorce rate for first marriages is
around 45 percent.\3\ Consequently, marriage as an institution has a
much weaker hold over the lives of children, adults, and communities
than it did a half-century ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ W. Bradford Wilcox et al. 2005. Why Marriage Matters, Second
Edition: Twenty-Six Conclusions from the Social Sciences. New York:
Institute from American Values.
\2\ http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators05/apc.htm.
\3\ David Popenoe. 1999. Life Without Father. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press. David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. 2005. The
State of Our Unions: 2005. New Brunswick, NJ: National Marriage
Project.
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What many Americans do not realize is that minorities and the poor
have born the brunt of the retreat from marriage. In terms of race and
ethnicity, 68 percent of African American births and 44 percent of
Latino births were out of wedlock in 2002, compared to 29 percent of
white births.\4\ (In the District of Columbia, 77 percent of black
children are born out of wedlock, compared to 59 percent of Latino
children and 26 percent of white children).\5\ Blacks are also about
three times as likely to divorce as are whites.\6\ Class is also an
important marker of our marriage divide. About 25 percent of mothers
without a high school diploma are currently unmarried, compared to
about five percent of college-educated mothers.\7\ Americans without
college degrees are also almost twice as likely to divorce as their
college-educated peers.\8\ So we see a marriage divide opening up in
our society, with African Americans, along with working class and poor
Americans, finding it much more difficult than other Americans to
fulfill their dreams of lifelong marriage.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
\5\ http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators05/apc.htm.
\6\ David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks, 2004. ``The Spread of
Single-Parent Families in the United States Since 1960.'' In D.P.
Moynihan et al. (eds.) The Future of the Family (New York: Russell
Sage): 25-65.
\7\ David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks, 2004.
\8\ Steven P. Martin, 2005. ``Growing Evidence for a `Divorce
Divide'? Education and Marital Dissolution Rates in the U.S. since the
1970s.'' College Park, MD: University of Maryland Department of
Sociology. Unpublished manuscript.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW MARRIAGE MATTERS
Although marriage's hold on America has weakened in the last 50
years, marriage still conveys important goods to children, families,
and the commonweal. In a recent report I co-authored with 15 other
family scholars, we found that children who are reared in an intact,
married family are about half as likely to suffer from depression,
alcohol and drug abuse, and attempted suicide, compared to children
reared in single parent families.\9\ We also find that boys who grow up
in an intact, married family are less than half as likely to end up in
prison, and that girls who grow up in intact, married family are about
half as likely to end up pregnant as teenagers, compared to their peers
who grow up outside an intact married family.\10\ Finally, we find that
children are significantly less likely to fall into or remain in
poverty if their parents are married, even when their parents hail from
disadvantaged backgrounds.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
\10\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
\11\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The collective consequences of marriage are also quite large. If we
were to increase the percent of children living in married homes to the
level we experienced in 1970, scholars estimate that 1 million fewer
children each year would be suspended from school, 900,000 fewer
children each year would engage in acts of delinquency or violence, and
61,000 fewer children each year would attempt suicide.\12\ We would
also see child poverty drop by approximately 20 percent, and federal
welfare spending drop by billions.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Paul Amato. 2005. ``The Impact of Family Formation Change on
the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next
Generation.'' The Future of Children 15: 75-96.
\13\ Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill. 2005. ``For Love and Money?
The Impact of Family Structure on Family Income.'' The Future of
Children 15: 57-74. Isabel Sawhill. 1999. ``Families at Risk.'' In H.
Aaron and R. Reischauer, Setting National Priorities: the 2000 Election
and Beyond. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But what is less well known is that the poor and minorities also
benefit from marriage. Mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds who marry
typically see their living standards rise 65 percent higher than
similar single mothers who do not marry.\14\ Other research has found
that disadvantaged young women who have their first child in marriage
are much less likely to end up in poverty, compared to similar women
who have their first child outside of marriage.\15\ Similar patterns
are found among African Americans. For instance, one study found that
black single mothers see their income rise by 81 percent if they marry;
this same study found that married African American mothers see their
income fall by more than 50 percent two years after a divorce.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
\15\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
\16\ Wilcox et al. 2005.
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Marriage also benefits lower-income and minority communities in
other ways. For instance, Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson finds that
murder and robbery rates in urban America are strongly associated with
the health of marriage in urban communities. In his words, ``Family
structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of
variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.'' \17\
A recent report on marriage and African Americans found that marriage
``appears to promote the economic, social, familial, and psychological
well-being of African American men and women.'' \18\ The bottom line is
that marriage matters for the welfare of all Americans, including poor
and minority Americans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Robert J. Sampson. 1995. ``Unemployment and Imbalanced Sex
Ratios: Race-Specific Consequences for Family Structure and Crime.'' In
M.B. Tucker and C. Mitchell-Kernan. The Decline in Marriage Among
African Americans. New York: Russell Sage. P. 249.
\18\ Lorraine Blackman et al. 2005. The Consequences of Marriage
for African Americans: A Comprehensive Literature Review. New York:
Institute for American Values.
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WHY MARRIAGE IS IN RETREAT
Scholars now believe that the retreat from marriage of the last
fifty years is largely rooted in four causes: new birth control
technologies and abortion, feminism and the changing status of women,
changes in the labor market, and welfare policy.\19\ As George Akerlof,
a Nobel-prize winning economist, has argued, the introduction of the
Pill in the 1960s and readily available abortion in the early 1970s
made it much easier for men and women to engage in nonmarital sex
without worrying about pregnancy. Thus, these technologies--and the
larger sexual revolution they helped fuel--destabilized norms around
sex and childbearing and made premarital sex much more common than it
was prior to their introduction; the ironic consequence was that the
United States witnessed dramatic increases in nonmarital childbearing
in the wake of the Pill and legal abortion.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Sara McLanahan. 2004. ``Diverging Destinies: How Children are
Faring Under the Second Demographic Transition.'' Demography 41: 607-
627.
\20\ George Akerlof, Janet Yellen, and M.L. Katz. 1996. ``An
Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States.''
Quarterly Journal of Economics 111: 277-317.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feminism and women's movement into the labor force between 1960 and
2000 also played important roles in fueling the retreat from marriage.
Feminism made women expect more from marriage, and more likely to avoid
marriage in the first place or seek a divorce if a marriage did not
meet their expectations.\21\ Women's entry into the labor force gave
them newfound earning power and a measure of financial independence--
both of which made it easier for them to avoid marriage or leave a
marriage.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ McLanahan. 2004.
\22\ McLanahan. 2004.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes in the labor market and the economy since the early 1970s
have made it more difficult for men with few skills and low levels of
education to find good-paying jobs. As a consequence, these men are
less ``marriageable''--that is, they are less attractive in financial
terms as potential spouses to women.\23\ So another reason that
marriage has declined is that men from minority and lower-income
communities are seen as less attractive marriage partners than they
were fifty years ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ McLanahan. 2004. William Julius Wilson. 1987. The Truly
Disadvantaged: the Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, welfare policy has played a role in driving marriage down.
First, cash benefits to single mothers rose from 1955 to 1975, reducing
the cost of a nonmarital pregnancy for women in this period.\24\
Second, most programs designed to serve the poor that have been added
since the 1960s--from food stamps to the Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC)--are means tested, which means that benefits are lowered or
eliminated as household income increases. Consequently, these programs
often penalize low-income couples who marry, especially when both
spouses bring income into their relationship.\25\ For instance, Adam
Carasso and Eugene Steuerle at the Urban Institute estimate that a
single mother with two children who has an income of $15,000 and is
dating or cohabiting with a man who earns $10,000 would stand to lose
$1,900 in her EITC benefit if she got married.\26\ Depending on her
state of residence, she could also lose access to food stamps, housing
assistance, and Medicaid were she to marry. Taken together, marriage
can dramatically reduce the resources that low-income couples have at
their disposal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ McLanahan. 2004.
\25\ Adam Carasso and C. Eugene Steurle. 2005. ``The Hefty Penality
on Marriage Facing Many Households with Children.'' The Future of
Children 15: 157-175.
\26\ Carasso and Stuerle. 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So another reason we have witnessed a retreat from marriage is that
the government has, over much of the last fifty years, rewarded single
motherhood and penalized marriage through its welfare and tax policies.
MARRIAGE DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTS
Because Federal welfare policy typically penalizes marriage among
lower-income couples, and because marriage provides important benefits
to such couples, I welcome Senator Brownback's bill to establish
Marriage Development Accounts (MDAs) for engaged and married couples
who live in the District of Columbia. Marriage is particularly fragile
among lower-income and minority residents of the District, who often
face very real financial penalties if they seek to marry. Senator
Brownback's bill, by providing up to $9,000 in matching funds to
engaged or married couples who save at least $3,000, helps to reduce
the marriage penalty that many low-income residents of the District
face. It also is valuable insofar as it provides married couples with a
financial reserve that may reduce the economic stresses that often
imperil the quality and stability of marriages.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ David Fein. 2004. Married and Poor. Bethesda, MD: Abt
Associates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bill also requires that this money be used to help purchase a
home, pursue higher or vocational education, or start a business--all
of which can help put couples on the road to financial security. In so
doing, this bill reinforces the normative connection that our society
draws between marriage and financial responsibility.\28\ This is a wise
move.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Steven Nock. 1998. Marriage in Men's Lives. New York: Oxford
University Press.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the bill also indicates that couples who attend marriage
education are eligible for a $300 bonus. Research suggests such
education can be helpful in fostering happier and more stable marriages
if this education provides couples with relationship skills and a
normative commitment to marriage itself.\29\ My hope is that this bill
will fund programs that provide both skills and a normative commitment
to marriage to couples who are married or who are interested in
marriage.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Jason Carroll and William J. Doherty. 2003. ``Evaluating the
Effectiveness of Premarital Prevention Programs: A Meta-Analytic Review
of Outcome Research.'' Family Relations 52: 105-118. Wilcox et al.
2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This bill is a modest but important step in the direction of
restoring marital sanity to our nation's welfare policies. Most federal
and state welfare policies designed to help the poor end up effectively
penalizing marriage, with devastating consequences for our nation's
most vulnerable citizens. This bill moves the federal government in a
different direction by providing financial reward to low income couples
who are married or seek to marry. It is voluntary and non-coercive; it
is about carrots, not sticks.
I hope to see more such efforts from the federal government in the
near future. These efforts are particularly important if we wish to
close the marriage divide that has opened up in recent years, a divide
that makes it much more difficult for African Americans and lower-
income citizens, and their children, to benefit from the social,
emotional, and material advantages of marriage.
STATEMENT OF REV. THABITI ANYABWILE, ASSISTANT PASTOR
FOR FAMILIES AND CHILDREN, CAPITOL HILL
BAPTIST CHURCH, WASHINGTON, DC
Senator Brownback. Reverend, thank you very much and give
me your correct pronunciation of your name.
Reverend Anyabwile. Sure, it's Thabiti Anyabwile.
Senator Brownback. Thank you.
Reverend Anyabwile. Thank you for having me here, it's a
pleasure to testify in support of this proposal. Let me
approach my comments from three vantage points, both as a
former policy analyst, as a parent and as a pastor.
As a former policy analyst, I won't cover the ground that
these brothers have already covered very well, but just to sort
of in a summary fashion say that if we're concerned about the
well-being of children and adults in a society, then the most
fundamental thing that we have to be concerned about, according
to the research, is how well children and parents fair in the
context of marriage.
And so any proposal that, as Mr. Haskins points out, that
tries to, you know, bloom some flowers in this terrain, I think
is worthy of our consideration. And so I'm excited to be
speaking to the proposal.
As a parent, let me only say that I am looking at this
issue in part, sort of forecasting, what might be the situation
that my daughters face. Delegate Norton talked about the
availability of marriageable men. It's a term that I loathe,
but it's a term that resonates with me, impacts me, as I think
about my daughters and their prospects for marrying.
If my daughters do what statistically African-Americans do,
which is marry inside the ethnic group, it rates higher than
any other ethnic group, then they are going to be facing what
we might call ``some dim prospects'', in terms of marriageable
men.
So as a father, one who is committed to, concerned about
raising daughters that have as a part of their view of the good
life, marriage to a strong and godly man, then I am very
concerned and very passionate about this issue and look forward
to participating in any dialogue possible on this.
Let me speak mostly from the vantage point of a pastor on
this issue, briefly. This issue conjures concern for me, both
from a theological perspective and a practical perspective.
Theologically, real quickly, the Lord likens his
relationship to His people, to marriage. So that Christ reveals
himself as one loves in the church, the way a husband is to
love a wife. And the church is to love Christ the way a wife
loves a husband, et cetera.
So just from a theological perspective, and understanding
that marriage is one theater where the glory of God is
displayed, where the love for Christ, for a fallen and sinful
world is displayed, I am motivated to be engaged in this issue.
From a practical perspective, I am privileged to be a part
of the church staff that conducts some 12 to 15 marriages a
year on average, a lot of which are among young couples, young
20 somethings, who are entering into marriage and are
considering marriage and are concerned about starting off on
the right foot in marriage.
From that vantage point, I want to echo what Dr. Wilcox has
spoken to, in terms of the importance of marriage counseling.
We can see, we think, a discernible difference between those
who have good marriage counseling previous to entering into
marriage and those who perhaps have not either had marriage
counseling or had the kind of counseling that focuses on
relationship skills and that is sort of centered in a normative
context, a context where marriage is highly valued, a context
where there is support both in rejoicing over marriage and
support through the difficulties of marriage.
Part of what I think is problematic as we look at African-
American communities, particularly in the inner city
communities, very often people in situations where there is
very little social capital, there's a great deal of isolation
where couples exist, in some ways, too independent, radically
independent of neighbors and friends, et cetera, who help to
support and establish that sort of normative climate that
values marriage and that values endurance in marriage.
So when you asked earlier, sort of, if there was a period
where we could change, sort of this curve, I might be inclined
to go back and blot out the 1960s and sort of blot out that
period, wherein the high valuation of marriage was seriously
under attack and seriously eroded over that decade and then on
into the 1970s and then today.
So I want to echo the notion that this proposal supports
that marriage counseling, and skill development is an important
component. And doing that in the context of a community, a
natural community, the churches, the synagogues wherein there
is a normative climate that supports marriage is critically
important.
One other point on counseling, then, related to that. I
think it would be a mistake for this bill to inadvertently or
intentionally curve people away from whatever source of
counseling that they would choose. So if they choose
professional counseling, i.e., a licensed psychologist, a
counselor, wonderful. But if they should choose to get that
counseling in the context of a faith community or some other
community organization, I think the bill would be wise to
support that because that's where that sort of climate is going
to be best reinforced. And to allow people to choose a form of
counseling most consonant with their deepest held beliefs is
going to be the wiser path to take, I think.
So I want to suggest that as you go forward and think about
this bill and think about the kinds of resources that are
available to people, it seems to me that you are thinking
wisely about this, but I think you want to have open to
individuals and couples, the widest range of possible sources
for their counseling. Thank you, Senator.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thabiti Anyabwile
Chairman Cochran and members of this esteemed committee: I am
Thabiti Anyabwile. I am Assistant Pastor for Families and Children at
Capitol Hill Baptist Church here in Washington, D.C. I am a former
Senior Policy Associate for the Center for the Study of Social Policy
in Washington, D.C. and Program Director for former North Carolina Gov.
James Hunt's early childhood education initiative called Smart Start.
As a Pastor, Policy Analyst, and Parent, I thank you for the
opportunity to appear before your committee to testify in support of
the proposal to implement Marriage Development Accounts and pre-
Marriage Development Accounts in Washington, D.C.
My testimony addresses three issues: the importance of promoting
marriage for the well-being of children and parents; the importance of
economic stability for the well-being of families; and the crucial role
of pre-marital counseling and marriage supports.
BACKGROUND
The American family has undergone significant changes in the past
several decades. One way of summarizing these changes is to reflect on
trends in family structure, where two general patterns are observable.
Trends in Family Structure
First, the traditional U.S. household comprised of the married,
two-parent biological family is statistically on the decline in the
United States. The proportion of married family households with own
biological children dropped from 40 percent of all households to 24
percent between 1970 and 2000.\1\ Several factors contribute to this
decline in the proportion of traditional households.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Jason Fields and Lynne M. Casper, ``America's Families and
Living Arrangements: March 2000,'' Current Population Reports, P20-537
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, January 2001); hereafter cited
as Fields and Casper, ``America's Families.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Individuals are increasingly choosing to delay first marriages.--
This choice to delay first marriages results in mixed effects.
On the one hand, data show that people who wait until age 30 or
older often stay married longer, with fewer divorces. However,
delays in first marriages may be related to higher rates of
single-parent families.\2\ On the other hand, those who do not
delay first marriages but marry young have alarmingly high
divorce rates. Assuming continuation of recent divorce trends,
as many as five out of ten young married couples may eventually
divorce.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ U.S. Bureau of the Census, ``Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage
in the 1990's,'' Current Population Reports, P23-180 (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992); hereafter cited as U.S. Bureau
of the Census, ``Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the 1990's.''
\3\ U.S. Bureau of the Census, ``Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage
in the 1990's.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Increasing numbers of individuals are choosing never to marry, and
never marry and raise children.--Single-mother families rose
from three million in 1970 to ten million in 2000. The growth
of single-father families, while a smaller number in absolute
terms, rose at an even higher rate during the same time
period--from 393,000 in 1970 to two million in 2000.\4\ The
rise in single-parent families is not without economic costs to
those families, however. Married couples with children are far
less likely to live in poverty than are single-parent families.
According to U.S. Census Bureau Data for 2002, 26.5 percent of
single-female headed households lived in poverty as compared to
5.3 percent of married couple families with children.\5\ In
addition, there is a strong relationship between educational
achievement and never-married childrearing, with women who are
high school dropouts more likely to become single parents, have
children at an early age, and have more children than their
college educated peers.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Fields and Casper, ``America's Families.''
\5\ U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2002
(Washington, D.C.: Author, 2003), available at http://www.census.gov/
hhes/www/poverty02.html. See Table 2. People and Families in Poverty by
Selected Characteristics: 2001 and 2002.
\6\ C. Bruner and S. Scott, ``Education and Parenting: A Note on
National Data'' (Des Moines, IA: Child and Family Policy Center,
November 1994).
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--Cohabitation among couples is on the rise.--In 2000, nearly 5.5
million couples chose to cohabit without marrying. This figure
represents about 9 percent of all married and unmarried coupled
households and about 5 percent of all U.S. households.\7\ In
addition, 40 percent of these households included children
under the age of 18--slightly less than the 46 percent of
married-couple households with children under 18.\8\ Although
nearly 40 percent of nonmarital births are attributable to
cohabitation,\9\ cohabitation tends to be a short-lived
arrangement. Nearly 50 percent of cohabiting couples enter
marriage or end their relationship within one year and 90
percent within five years.\10\ Many couples appear to be
choosing cohabitation instead of marriage for a number of
reasons, including: sharing the costs of living expenses, weak
preferences for marriage, and testing a relationship before
marrying. However, some 75 percent of children whose parents
cohabit will see their parents break-up, while 33 percent of
children in married families will do so, suggesting that
cohabitation is not a route for achieving stable and long-term
families or marriages.\11\
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\7\ Tavia Simmons and Martin O'Connell, ``Married-Couple and
Unmarried-Partner Households: 2000,'' Census 2000 Special Reports
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau).
\8\ Fields and Casper, ``America's Families,'' p. 12.
\9\ L. Bumpass and H. H. Lu, ``Trends in Cohabitation and
Implications for Children's Family Contexts in the United States,''
Population Studies 54 (2000): 29-41.
\10\ Wendy Manning and Dan T. Lichter, ``Parental Cohabitation and
Children's Economic Well-Being,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 58
(1996): 998-1010.
\11\ Katherine Anderson, Don Browning, and Brian Boyer (Eds.),
Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper? (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2002).
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--Divorce continues at high levels.--While the sharp increase in
divorce rates that began in the 1960's leveled off during the
1990's, divorce remains at very high levels and at rates nearly
two times higher than any other developed nation.\12\ While
most people will marry at least once in their lives,
approximately one-half of all persons who marry are projected
to divorce at some point in the future. The typical first
marriage now lasts about seven to eight years among those
couples that eventually divorce.\13\ In 1996, the last year for
which detailed marriage and divorce statistics were published
by the National Center for Health Statistics, 20 percent of men
and 22 percent of women had been divorced.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital
Statistics Report, 1990 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health
and Humans Services). The divorce rate per 1,000 married women over 15
rose from 9.2 to 14.9 to 22.6 during the decades ending 1960, 1970, and
1980, respectively. The rate lowered slightly to 20.9 in 1990. Marriage
and divorce statistics comparing the United States to twelve other
nations can be found at www.ed.gov/pubs/Youth Indicators/indtab05.html.
\13\ Rose M. Kreider and Jason M. Fields, ``Number, Timing, and
Duration of Marriages and Divorces: Fall 1996,'' Current Population
Reports, P70-80 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2001), p. 9;
hereafter cited as Kreider and Fields, ``Marriages and Divorces.''
\14\ Kreider and Fields, ``Marriages and Divorces,'' p. 6.
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One result of high divorce rates is increased rates of remarriage
and blended families, making this the second general trend in family
structure. Nearly half of all U.S. marriages represent a remarriage for
at least one spouse. Approximately one-third of all children will live
in a remarried or cohabiting stepfamily before adulthood.\15\ Of the 20
percent of men and 22 percent of women who reported being divorced at
some point prior to 1996, more than half were remarried. As of 1996,
12.6 percent of all men and 13.4 percent of all women had been or were
in their second marriage.\16\ Most of those remarrying usually did so
within about three years following a divorce. However, approximately 60
percent of second marriages are likely to end in divorce.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Marilyn Coleman, Lawrence Ganong, and Mark Fine,
``Reinvestigating Remarriage: Another Decade of Progress,'' Journal of
Marriage and the Family 62 (November 2000): 1288-1307.
\16\ Kreider and Jason M. Fields, ``Marriages and Divorces.''
\17\ See Stepfamily Foundation, Inc. website at www.stepfamily.org.
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MARRIAGE AND CHILD WELL-BEING
There is substantial research evidence that family structure and
family climate matter for the well-being of children. A recent
literature review published by Child Trends summarizes several
significant ways in which family structure affects child outcomes.\18\
Children in two-parent families with low levels of parental conflict--
especially two-parent biological families--exhibit the highest levels
of well-being when compared to children in other family structures
(e.g., single parent families, two-parent stepfamilies, divorced
families, and cohabiting parents). Other family structures may
introduce varying levels of family instability that influence a range
of outcomes. For example, research indicates that families headed by
unmarried mothers are more likely to experience higher levels of
poverty, housing instability, teen and non-marital childbearing, and
lower educational attainment. In the case of divorced families, there
is greater prevalence of depression, antisocial and impulsive behavior,
and school-related behavior problems.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Kristin Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek, and Carol Emig,
``Marriage from A Child's Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect
Children, and What Can We Do about It?'' (Washington, D.C.: Child
Trends, 2002), hereafter cited as Moore, et al, ``Marriage from a
Child's Perspective.''
\19\ Moore, et al, ``Marriage from a Child's Perspective,'' 1-2;
Nan Marie Astone and Sara McLanahan, ``Family Structure, Parental
Practices, and High School Completion,'' American Sociological Review
56 (1991): 309-320; Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with A
Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1994).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remarriages often result in ``blended'' families with one or more
stepchildren. Children in stepfamilies often face challenges in
maintaining positive relationships with their non-custodial parent and
integrating family life in the second marriage. While differences in
outcomes between children in stepfamilies and first-marriage families
are modest, children in stepfamilies do tend to exhibit poorer academic
performance, lower socio-emotional adjustment, and more behavior
problems. These differences appear to be most acute during the first
two to three years of a remarriage and to diminish over time.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ David H. Demo and Martha J. Cox, ``Families with Young
Children: A Review of Research in the 1990s,'' Journal of Marriage and
the Family 62 (November 2000): 876-895; hereafter cited as Demo and
Cox, ``Families with Young Children.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When parental separation or divorce occurs, there usually is a
strong benefit to both parents remaining involved in the child's life.
Separation or divorce, however, jeopardizes the stability of parent-
child relationships. This is especially true for fathers, who are not
typically the custodial parent during times of family instability or
changes in family structure. Non-custodial father contact, while it may
take many forms, appears to diminish over time (see Figure 1). Only 12
percent of fathers maintained contact when they had been divorced
longer than ten years. Along with these declines in parent-child
contact come parallel declines in frequency of mother-father contact,
father's influence on decision making, and child support payment after
the fifth year of divorce.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ J.A. Seltzer, ``Relationships between Fathers and Children Who
Live Apart,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 53 (1991): 79-102.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
marriage and parental well-being
Research also indicates that family structure is related to the
well-being of adult parents in the family. For example, divorce and
other marital disruptions are linked to mental health problems for
young adults and non-custodial fathers. Such mental health problems
include depression, psychological distress, chronic stress, and
suicide. Many non-custodial fathers feel a loss of control, anxiety,
guilt, sadness, and emptiness associated with estrangement from their
former spouse and children.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ A. Cherlin, P. L. Chase-Landsdale, and C. McRae, ``Effect of
Parental Divorce on Mental Health,'' American Sociological Review, 63,
no. 2 (1998): 239-249, as cited in Moore, et al, ``Marriage from A
Child's Perspective.'' For the effects of divorce on non-custodial
fathers, see Adam Shapiro and James David Lambert, ``Longitudinal
Effects of Divorce on Father-Child Relationship Quality and Fathers'
Psychological Well-Being,'' paper presented at the 1996 American
Sociological Association Meeting in New York and the 1997 National
Council on Family Relations' Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Available at: www.unf.edu/ shapiro/jmffather.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
economic stability and family well-being \23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Only a brief overview of the economic status of families is
provided. The economic challenges facing American families and policy
recommendations are explored more fully in Center for the Study of
Social Policy, Improving the Economic Success of Families:
Recommendations for State Policy (Washington, D.C.: Author, September
2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Making Ends Meet in Low-Income Families
Many families are having a difficult time making ends meet, a fact
that is only partially reflected in official federal poverty figures.
Several organizations analyze the needs of families in terms of ``self-
sufficiency standards'' or ``basic family budgets''--more realistic
measures than the federal poverty level of how much income is required
for a ``safe and decent standard of living.'' These standards are
adjusted for different communities and types of families.\24\ This
research indicates that the typical amount needed to support a family
of four is almost twice the national poverty line ($17,463), and that
29 percent of families nationwide fall below this basic budget
threshold. Nearly 30 percent of families with incomes less than 200
percent of the federal poverty line confronted at least one critical
hardship (e.g., missing meals, facing eviction, having utilities cut
off, lacking access to health care, or overcrowded housing) and over 72
percent of these families suffered from at least one serious hardship
(e.g., stress over providing meals, inability to pay a month's rent or
mortgage, reliance on the emergency room for health care, and lack of
adequate child care).\25\ In addition, the poor and the near-poor
experience these hardships despite significant increases in the number
of hours worked during the last decade.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Heather Boushey, Chauna Brocht, Bethney Gundersen and Jared
Bernstein, Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families,
(Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute, July 2001), hereafter
cited as Boushey et al, Hardships in America; see also Wider
Opportunities for Women website at www.6strategies.com.
\25\ Boushey et al, Hardships in America, 1-2.
\26\ Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, The State
of Working America, 2000-2001 (Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy
Institute, 2001), 93-107.
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Even people with full-time, year-round jobs are not guaranteed an
escape from poverty. In 1997, individuals working full-time year-round
jobs made up 10.3 percent of the country's poor population. This is a
higher percentage than in 1979. The trend is similar for poor families
with children, with the proportion of working families that are poor
increasing during the past two decades. In 2001, 2.8 million Americans
were classified as working poor.\27\ Approximately 32.2 percent of non-
elderly persons live in low-income (e.g., up to 200 percent of the
poverty level) families and 16.3 percent of these live in such families
even though they have at least one full-time, full-year worker.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Ibid.
\28\ Gregory Acs, Katherine Phillips, and Daniel McKenzie,
``Playing By the Rules, But Losing the Game: Americans in Low-Income
Working Families,'' In Kazis and Miller, Low-Wage Workers in the New
Economy (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2001), 24-25.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Families with young children also appear to have the greatest
difficulty making ends meet. For example, families with children under
six have greater needs for child care, higher basic budget needs, and
are more likely to have incomes below 200 percent of the federal
poverty level than are families with older children. Nationally, about
40 percent of all families with at least one child below age six have
incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, compared to 29
percent of families with children ages 6-17.\29\ And although families
of young children, particularly lower-wage families, have increased
their workforce participation in order to provide for their families,
they often have not realized substantial increases in earned income.
One study found that a two-parent one-income family earning $18,000 per
year and choosing to add $12,000 per year through spousal income from
work only gained $2,000 per year in disposable income. Lost benefits,
increased taxes, and new childcare costs (estimated very conservatively
at $4,500 for the two children) erased most of the spouse's
supplemental earnings, leaving this family unable to meet their basic
family budget despite increased work effort.\30\ This disparity in low-
income status among families with children suggests that special
attention must be paid to providing economic relief to families with
young children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2002.
\30\ C. Bruner and J. Goldberg, ``The Dilemma of Getting Ahead:
Low-Waged Families, Child Care, Income Transfer Payment and the Need to
Re-Examine Governments' Role'' (Des Moines, IA: Child and Family Policy
Center, 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Relationship Between Economic Stability and Family Structure
During the 1990's, the link between family structure and family
economic outcomes remained strong (see Figure 2). As might be expected,
two-earner families fared better than single-earner families. Real
(inflation adjusted) median income rose from 1980 to 1998 for two-
earner married families due largely to increased participation of both
parents in the workforce, while single-earner married and father-headed
families experienced small declines. A significant amount of two-earner
income resulted from higher contributions to family income from female
wage earners.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Lynn White, ``Economic Circumstances and Family Outcomes: A
Review of the 1990s,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 62, no. 4 (2000):
1035-1051.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
While female-headed families experienced some slight income gains
between 1980 and 1999, their average earnings lagged well behind their
male counterparts and overall economic well-being appears to have
worsened for these families. The benefits of economic expansion between
1993-1999 were offset for working single mothers by contractions in
public safety net and benefits programs. Rather than escaping poverty
through work and improving economic opportunities, more families led by
single mothers found themselves in deeper poverty in the latter half of
the 1990s than was the case between 1993 and 1995.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ Kathryn H. Porter and Allen Dupree, ``Poverty Trends for
Families Headed by Working Single Mothers'' (Washington, D.C.: Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the whole, available research conducted in recent decades
supports the premise that economic success is associated with better
family outcomes, including more marriage, less divorce, greater marital
happiness, and higher levels of child well-being. However, broader
definitions of economic stability (e.g., educational attainment,
wealth, career stability and progression, and home ownership) appear to
better predict positive family well-being than a more narrow definition
like family income alone.\33\ One large-scale comparative research
project demonstrates narrow effects for income alone on child behavior,
mental health, and physical health outcomes, but consistent effects on
ability and achievement.\34\ The most generous estimate attributes
approximately one-half of poor child outcomes in school performance,
graduation, teen pregnancy, and young adult idleness to income; most
studies estimate that income accounts for about 30 percent of changes
in outcomes.\35\ These findings suggest that policies aimed solely at
improving income will benefit a significant number of families, but are
likely to be insufficient for addressing the complex needs of all
families.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ White, ``Economic Circumstances and Family Outcomes.''
\34\ G. J. Duncan and J. Brooks-Gunn, ``Income Effects Across the
Life Span: Integration and Interpretation,'' in G. J. Duncan and J.
Brooks-Gunn (Eds.), The Consequences of Growing Up Poor (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 1997), 596-610.
\35\ White, ``Economic Circumstances and Family Outcomes.''
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Focusing on economic success is one conceptual approach to
considering the effects of income and class on family outcomes;
considering the costs of economic disadvantage is another. The
combination of poverty and one or more socio-demographic risk factors
like single parenthood, low educational attainment, and four or more
children poses significant risk for negative behavioral, emotional, and
school outcomes for children in such families.\36\ For most children in
poverty, multiple socio-demographic risk factors are likely to co-
occur, creating serious economic and social disadvantage. Family
``turbulence,'' dramatic changes created in part by changes in family
structure and family living arrangements, also impacts these
outcomes.\37\ If economic advantage is associated with well-being, it
is as clear that economic and social disadvantage are associated with a
host of negative child and family results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Kristin Anderson Moore, Sharon Vandivere, and Jennifer Ehrle,
``Sociodemographic Risk and Child Well-Being'' (Washington, D.C.: The
Urban Institute, June 2000).
\37\ Kristin Anderson Moore, Sharon Vandivere, and Jennifer Ehrle,
``Turbulence and Child Well-Being'' (Washington, D.C.: The Urban
Institute, June 2000). The authors include in their list of signs of
``turbulence'': moving from one state to another, to a different home,
and/or in with another family; two or more changes in parental
employment; two or more changes in schools; and significant declines in
parent or child health.
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MARRIAGE COUNSELING AND SUPPORTS
Research evidence indicates that the economic advantages of
marriage (1) surpass that available to cohabiting couples, (2) can
accrue to low-income couples, and (3) lower poverty among children and
women.\38\ Consequently, state policy to strengthen families should
have as one of its aims supporting strong marriages among adults who
consider marriage an option. Such supports and promotion activities
should be one part of a multi-pronged strategy to encourage stable and
reduce the risk of unstable relationships.\39\ Public policy can
support the healthy formation of families by providing marriage skills
training and education opportunities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Robert I. Lerman, ``Marriage and the Economic Well-Being of
Families with Children: A Review of the Literature'' (Washington, D.C.:
The Urban Institute, July 2002).
\39\ Robert Lerman, ``Should Government Promote Healthy
Marriages?'' (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, May 2002).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One method for fostering healthier marriages, and for reducing
marital conflict leading to harmful relationships and divorces, is to
offer premarital education and marriage skills supports to couples.
Because marital distress negatively impacts physical health, mental
health, work productivity, child outcomes, and quality of life,\40\
investments in marital education and skill development programs are
important for the health and well-being of families and communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ For the effects of marital distress on physical health, see
for example, B. Burman and G. Margolin, ``Analysis of the Association
Between Marital Relationships and Health Problems: An Interactional
Perspective,'' Psychological Bulletin 112 (1992): 39-63; for a review
of effects on mental health, see K. Halford and R. Bouma, ``Individual
Psychopathology and Marital Distress,'' In K. Halford and H. J. Markman
(Eds.), Clinical Handbook of Marriage and Couples Intervention (New
York: Wiley, 291-321); and for effects on work productivity, see for
example, M. S. Forthofer, H. J. Markman, M. Cox, S. Stanley, and R. C.
Kessler, ``Associations between Marital Distress and Work Loss in A
National Sample,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 58 (1996): 597-605.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the positive association of healthy marriages with higher
work productivity and better physical and mental health, questions
about the effectiveness of marriage education and skill-building for
low-income adults have arisen. One nationally representative study of
fragile families indicates that one-third of all unmarried parents face
no serious barriers to marriage, and another one-third could benefit
from premarital education and skill-building activities if they are
coupled with employment and mental health supports. This same research
found that approximately 13 percent of unmarried parents would be
inappropriate participants in such programs due to a history of partner
violence.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, ``Barriers to Marriage
Among Fragile Families'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, May
2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Effective premarital education programs can contribute to more
positive family outcomes by prompting more serious deliberations about
marriage among couples, reducing impulsive or poor decisions to marry,
and helping couples learn of resources and supports should they need
help in the future. In addition, existing research examining some
marriage preparation programs reveals significantly positive outcomes.
Specifically, couples completing counseling and skills programs that
focus on strengthening protective factors (e.g., friendship,
commitment, spiritual or religious connection), lowering risk factors
(e.g., negative interaction and unrealistic expectations), and
decreasing marital distress by helping couples learn to communicate
when in conflict are significantly more likely to communicate more
positively and less negatively; avoid breakups and divorce; exhibit
higher levels of marital satisfaction; and exhibit less relationship
aggression than couples who did not participate in such programs. These
effects are stable in some follow-up studies for up to five years.\42\
In addition, positive outcomes are observable even when the programs
are delivered in community-based settings and by clergy and lay
leaders,\43\ thus enhancing the prospects for more widespread
implementation through public private/partnerships.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ For a review of research on premarital education, see Scott M.
Stanley, ``Making A Case for Premarital Education,'' Family Relations
50 (2001): 272-280. For a meta-analytic review of experimental and
quasi-experimental studies, see J. S. Carroll and W. J. Doherty,
``Evaluating the Effectiveness of Premarital Prevention Programs: A
Meta-Analytic Review of Outcome Research,'' Family Relations 52 (2):
105-118.
\43\ S. M. Stanley, J. J. Markman, L. M. Prado, P. A. Olmos-Gallo,
L. Tonelli, M. St. Peters, B. D. Leber, M. Bobulinski, A. Codova, and
S. W. Whitton, ``Community-Based Premarital Prevention: Clergy and Lay
Leaders on the Front Lines,'' Family Relations 50 (1): 67-76.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A number of states already provide funding for multiple community-
based marriage skill-building and pre-marital education services,
resources, and activities to assist those adults and parents interested
in marrying. Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin
are among the states that support and provide funding for premarital
education or relationship skills workshops.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ K. Gardiner, M. Fishman, P. Nikolov, S. Laud, and A. Glosser,
State Policies to Promote Marriage: Preliminary Report (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002); hereafter
cited as Gardiner, et al, State Policies to Promote Marriage. The
report is available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/hspparent.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION
Many American families are struggling to maintain strong and
healthy bonds under the pressures of economic uncertainty and the
stresses of a rapidly changing social context. With growing work
demands and pressures, families are faced with difficult decisions
about family interaction and routines. Unfortunately, many families are
not able to balance the competing demands of family and work.
The proposed Marriage Development and Pre-Marriage Development
Accounts are promising tools for meeting the dual goals of fostering
stronger families through marriage and helping such families begin with
a more promising financial footing.
Senator Brownback. Thank you. I've just been informed that
we're going to vote at noon. I've got another panel I want to
do so I am going to just ask a couple, if I could, very brief
questions and go to my next panel.
Reverend, as you talk to young black men in your church or
within your community, what do they say to you about getting
married, their desire to get married, the normative climate for
them to get married in? What would be an incentive to them to
get married?
Reverend Anyabwile. Thank you for the question. I would
observe a couple of things, I would observe young men who say
they would like to get married, it's part of their ideal about
what life should be like. Yet, in some ways, the ideal seems
very much beyond what they think themselves capable of or able
to do.
Senator Brownback. Why? Why is it beyond?
Reverend Anyabwile. Well, I think in many communities, many
young men are wrestling with a sense of despair, you're
wrestling with a sense of hopelessness, you're wrestling with a
sense of lack of opportunity or possibility. And so that colors
much of what you would think about in terms of the future.
Senator Brownback. So he's saying, ``Look, I don't have a
high school degree, I'm not going to be able to get a decent
job, I can't support'', is that the hopelessness and despair
you are talking about?
Reverend Anyabwile. Well, that's one part of it. The other
sort of reaction that you will get is from men who we might
think are sort of marriageable, who are not marrying at the
rates that we would hope, who would see themselves as having,
as it were, kind of freedom, flexibility in relationships and
et cetera, and are choosing to delay marriage oftentimes, in my
opinion, for what would be less than good reasons. So I think
you are encountering both apathy toward marriage and despair.
Senator Brownback. For their own random pleasure is what
you're saying?
Reverend Anyabwile. More or less. But now that again, I
want to say, is connected to our expectations around marriage.
There are poor men all over the world who don't abandon their
children and their wives. And this rate, at which we are
looking at, is recent, it's more or less in my lifetime that we
have, sort of, come to this point.
So your proposal is timely and I think we should be
aggressive about reestablishing expectations around marriage
and around dating and how to select potential mates and et
cetera.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Smith, I want to in particular
invite you and others on the panel, really anybody, to work
with us on restructuring welfare incentives to incentivize
marriage within the welfare proposals so we are trying to do
some things to encourage marriage.
But it seems to me, one of the best things we can do, as we
try to encourage work within the welfare context, is to build
within the context of the various programs, whether it's earned
income tax credit or low income housing or these or that, an
incentive for marriage. So there's not the economic
disincentives, and there actually are incentives for marriage
within the system.
And it will be a bit of a tough discussion and debate, but
I think the evidence is so strong that it'll be--actually, it
will be a very good discussion to have with the Nation as we
would put forward proposals within welfare reform that
incentivizes marriage within the structure of it.
Not just saying, okay, we are going to have a separate
program of MDAs that encourage marriage development accounts,
which would be fine. But also, within TANF, within earned
income tax credit, low income housing, that there is actually
an incentive to being married within those baseline programs,
which I think would send a much better signal. It would be
desirous to work with you and others on that possibility.
Mr. Haskins. Senator, if I may, if I could speak.
Senator Brownback. Yes.
Mr. Haskins. This is an area of considerable academic
interest and there's been a lot of studies recently summarizing
some new big studies. And I think the bottom line is that the
Tax Code is pretty good, primarily because of earned income tax
credit. Most cohabitating couples who are low income will be
better off in the Tax Code than if they are single.
But benefits, food stamps, housing, and so forth, that's
where the real penalties are. So it's the welfare programs
themselves, not the Tax Code and not the earned income tax
credit. I'll send your staff some of these articles.
Senator Brownback. That will be good and just, okay, then
how should we restructure it? What should we do? And let's just
see about putting those in.
Mr. Haskins. The most straightforward thing you do is to
move up the phase out rates. The problem is the phase out
rates. But the problem with that is that it is very, very
expensive. This is a real conundrum. If you want it--it's
really the only choice is to move up the phase out rates or to
make the phase out rates slower so they phase out over a bigger
period.
But as you do that, you bring more people into the program
and allow them to stay in the program longer, and it's very,
very expensive. People have analyzed this and there's some
literature on that as well. But it's very expensive. There's a
Hobson's choice here.
Senator Brownback. I'm glad to hear that there are ways we
can work with that. Gentlemen, thank you very much and I
appreciate that a great deal.
The next panel will be Ms. Colleen Dailey, Executive
Director of Capital Area Asset Building Corporation, it's a
nonprofit organization which administers, would be a potential
administrator of the proposed marriage development accounts
program. Mr. George Williams, Executive Director, Urban
Fathering Project, National Center on Fathering, Kansas City,
Missouri, Mr. Curtis Watkins, President, East Capitol Center
for Change, Washington, DC, accompanied by Mr. Winston Graham
and his fiance, Ms. Saundra Corley, residents of Ward 7
District, who plan to get married and if possible, open a
marriage development account. So I'll look forward to hearing
that as well.
Ms. Dailey, thank you very much for joining us and I look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF COLLEEN DAILEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CAPITAL AREA ASSET BUILDING CORPORATION,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Dailey. Thank you for having me. I am honored to speak
today on behalf of the Capital Area Asset Building Corporation,
also known as CAAB. And as you said, we would be one of the
organizations entrusted with implementation of this program.
You've heard a lot about the need for marriage development
and marriage promotion, that's not my expertise, but I will say
that I have learned a lot over the past few months from people
who have already testified, but also just read a lot of
research and I have been convinced that this is something
that's definitely worthwhile, although it's not an area that
CAAB has worked in before.
I'll mainly be commenting just on the effectiveness of
matched savings accounts as a poverty reduction strategy and to
tell you a little bit about CAAB. CAAB was founded in 1997 to
support the development of individual development accounts or
IDAs in the District of Columbia. IDA programs couple financial
education with a financial incentive in the form of a matched
savings account to encourage low to moderate income individuals
to invest in higher return assets. Specifically home ownership,
postsecondary education and job training and small business
development.
CAAB works with nine community organizations in the
District of Columbia to operate IDA programs currently. And to
date, we have helped 269 D.C. residents to successfully reach
their savings goals and purchase assets in our programs. That's
resulted in 138 first time home purchases, 148 people
furthering their education and 27 investing in small
businesses.
We have accumulated a lot of data and also powerful
personal stories to provide evidence the IDAs give people
greater control over their financial future and really change
the way people think about money, savings and investment. And
there's tons of national data to support this as well and there
are hundreds of programs operating throughout the country.
So to sum up, we know that this approach works and we are
excited to have an opportunity to be able to expand it to more
eligible residents in the District. In addition to providing
money for 400 to 500 more accounts in the District of Columbia,
your proposal does build on and improve some important ways
that the existing Federal and District laws have provided
funding for IDA programs and I just wanted to touch on those.
First by raising the income guidelines for couples to
$50,000, it will enable us to serve more couples and two parent
families. In the history of CAAB's program, only 14 percent of
our account holders have been married and I believe this is in
large part due to the low income guidelines that we're
currently operating under with our Federal funding and our
District funding. And that would be for couples, it starts at
$33,000 is the ceiling and then it goes up a few thousand for
each additional household member.
But given the current cost of living in the District and
especially the cost of housing, it's really hard for us to be
able to serve two parent families and this will enable us to do
that.
Second, by providing a more substantial match, as has
already been noted, this proposal could enable us to help more
IDA savers reach their goal of the home ownership. That's the
number one desire of people who join our IDA program, is to
become homeowners and escalating housing prices in the District
and a slowing down in the production of affordable homes has
really limited our ability to help people become first time
home buyers.
And on that note, if there's an opportunity for improvement
in this bill, one thing that I would recommend is looking at
the allowable purchase area. One thing that we have come up
against in our current IDA program is that many people enter
the program wanting to buy a home in the District, they fulfill
all of their obligations, they reach their savings goal, they
earn their match, which is currently $3,000 under our program
and they look and they are unable to find a home that they can
afford in the District.
Having seen many savers come up against this, we've
extended our purchase area to include the suburbs of Maryland
and Virginia so that more people can buy homes. They can use
the money that they've earned and they can continue to keep
their jobs in the District and contribute to the local economy.
So I would urge you to consider amending that in your proposal.
Back to the positive, surely the marriage development
accounts proposal has decreased CAAB's fundraising obligation
and it provides us with adequate funds for planning, staffing
and marketing this program. And all these things will really be
critical to its successful implementation.
Just to explain that a little bit further, the Federal
funding that we currently receive through the Assets for
Independence Act requires that for every dollar of Federal
funding we use, we have to raise a dollar of non-Federal,
either private or local government match dollars in order to
use it.
So while we have a $500,000 grant that comes with a
$500,000 fundraising obligation, same with our District money,
which is $200,000. So in this case, the proposal includes for
every $3 of Federal money that we use, we must raise $1 and
that still is an obligation, but it will allow us to spend less
time fund raising and more time really planning and making sure
this program is successful. And I also just want to thank you
for providing enough funding for operating funds.
That's something often that doesn't come with IDA programs,
you get the matching money but you don't get the critical
funding for implementation and that was included.
One other factor, just to echo what others have said, I do
believe that the evaluation component is really critical. One
reason why IDA programs have expanded across the country and
we've learned a lot from them, is because there has been a
very, very strong evaluation component. CAAB participated in
the first demonstration that began in 1997 with a national
demonstration and there's a wealth of data around that, that's
helped us to improve the operation.
It is a concern of mine that--well, we talked about it. I
don't know where the funding is going to come from and
especially because this is a very new approach and I believe
this is a necessary program, but whether or not it's
successful, you need to be able to evaluate as you go along and
change things and that's the important part of any pilot. So I
would like to see more details and more funding devoted
specifically to that.
And last, I just want to say we are eager to get this
program up and running and we greatly appreciate, Senator
Brownback, that your staff, particularly Mary Dietrich, were
willing to sit down with us, learn about our IDA program,
listen to our concerns and make sure that she crafted a
proposal that really meets not only your objectives, but ours
as well. And I feel very positive about this and looking
forward to working with Youth Capital Center for Change and the
National Center on Fathering because IDA programs are really
about partnership. And I think they bring an important
component. And the financial incentives and the financial
education aspect of it, those two things together, I think,
really can help families to improve their financial standing
and their household stability.
Senator Brownback. Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Colleen Dailey
Thank you for this opportunity to testify today in favor of the
Marriage Development Accounts proposal introduced by Senator Brownback.
My name is Colleen Dailey, and I am the Executive Director of the
Capital Area Asset Building Corporation, also known as CAAB, one of the
organizations that would be entrusted with implementation of this new
program.
CAAB is a non-profit, 501(3)(c) that provides low- to moderate-
income individuals and families with opportunities to improve their
financial management skills, increase their savings and build wealth.
Since 1997, the year the organization was founded, CAAB has supported
the development of Individual Development Account (IDA) programs in the
District of Columbia. IDA programs couple financial education with a
financial incentive--in the form of a matched savings account--to
encourage low- and moderate-income individuals to invest in high-return
assets. CAAB IDAs support the goals of homeownership, career training,
a college education, or small business start-up or expansion.
The Marriage Development Account (MDA) proposal builds on more than
a decade of research demonstrating that income and assets help low-
income families achieve self-sufficiency. CAAB was one of twelve
organizations to participate in a national demonstration of IDAs, and
the research findings from the American Dream Demonstration have
influenced the development of several hundred IDA programs across the
country.
To date, a total of 269 D.C. residents have reached their savings
goals and purchased assets in the CAAB IDA program: 138 have purchased
their first home, 104 have invested in a college education or career
training, and 27 have made small business investments. Together, these
individuals saved about $460,000, earned $818,815 in matching funds,
and made investments totaling more than $12 million. These and other
data attest to the effectiveness of IDAs as a community economic
development strategy; but beyond the numbers and dollar figures,
current and past IDA savers credit the CAAB IDA program with changing
the way they think about money, savings and investment, and giving them
greater control over their financial futures.
The Marriage Development Account (MDA) proposal is essentially a
marriage of two economic development strategies: IDAs and marriage
promotion. The former I know a great deal about, but the latter is new
territory for me, as well as for CAAB. But I have listened and learned
a lot over the past several months, from community leaders like Curtis
Watkins of East Capitol Center for Change, from whom you will also hear
today; from the Honorable Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has
already spoken passionately about the need for marriage promotion
initiatives; and from some of the country's best social researchers who
have looked at various factors affecting and resulting from single
parenthood in low-income communities and concluded that two-parent
families provide the best circumstances for raising children. So while
I am by no means an expert on the subject, I have listened to the
experts and believe there is an important agenda here. And I am
optimistic that the provision of IDAs in conjunction with marriage
promotion and strengthening initiatives could lead to very positive
outcomes in our community. So I look forward to working in partnership
with the National Center on Fathering, East Capitol Center for Change,
and other groups who are doing commendable work to strengthen marriages
and families in the District of Columbia.
Returning to the savings and asset development goals of this
proposal, the MDA program, while modeled on our existing IDA program,
has some important distinctions:
--Target population.--CAAB IDAs are open to all individuals whose
household income does not exceed 85 percent of the D.C. median
income. MDAs would be available to married or engaged couples
whose combined income does not exceed $50,000, or single,
childless individuals whose income does not exceed $25,000.
--Match rate and ceiling.--Individuals saving in a CAAB IDA earn
matching funds at a rate of either 2:1 or 3:1, depending on
their asset goal, for a maximum match of $3,000. Couples
qualifying for MDAs would earn a 3:1 match on up to $3,000 of
savings, for a maximum match of $9,000 in matching funds, and
individuals would earn a 3:1 match on up to $1,500 of
individual savings, for a maximum match of $4,500.
--Non-federal matching funds.--CAAB currently receives IDA matching
funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and
the District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities
and Banking. Each of these grants comes with the stipulation
that every federal or local dollar must be matched by funds
from another jurisdiction or private source. The MDA proposal
carries a less stringent fundraising obligation, with the
stipulation that every three federal dollars must be matched by
one dollar from District or private sources.
These differences represent opportunities for CAAB to bring
financial education and savings and investment opportunities to a wider
group of low- to moderate-income D.C. residents. For example, our
traditional IDA program, while open to all income-eligible individuals,
attracts primarily single parents (70 percent of all IDA savers), with
married couples accounting for only 14 percent of our total IDA client
base. The higher income guidelines for couples in the MDA proposal will
enable us to serve a greater number of couples and two-parent
households. As the research shows very well, financial stress is a
leading cause of marital problems and family instability, so I see this
as a great opportunity to provide couples and parents with financial
training and skills that could alleviate some of this stress and lead
to greater economic and family stability.
Secondly, the provision of a more generous match will enable us to
help more individuals reach their goal of homeownership. As housing
prices continue to escalate in the D.C. region, fewer and fewer of our
IDA savers are finding homes that they can afford based on their
earnings, whatever special loans and subsidies they may qualify for,
and a few thousand dollars of down payment money they've earned in the
IDA program. As a result, we've seen our homeownership success rate
decrease over the past couple of years, and we've allowed individuals
who are unable to find affordable homes in the District to use their
IDA funds for purchases in the nearby suburbs of Virginia and Maryland.
While we'd like to be able to keep our IDA funds in the District, we
don't believe it's fair to penalize homebuyers who wish to buy in the
District but cannot afford to. The more generous match of $9,000 for
couples and $4,500 for individuals should give MDA savers a better
chance of purchasing homes in the District, but I would urge
Subcommittee members to consider extending the home purchase area to
the wider geographic region covered by our current IDA program. It is
my hope that the District government will do more in the coming years
to support the development of affordable housing, but until that
occurs, I believe we have a duty to support homeownership for D.C.
residents in areas that will allow them to keep their jobs in the
District and continue to contribute to the local economy.
Finally, I want to thank Senator Brownback for increasing the
federal share of matching funds as part of this proposal. This
effectively reduces the non-federal fundraising obligation for CAAB and
ensures that we'll be able to hit the ground running in fiscal year
2006. The MDA proposal has already gained the attention of potential
investors from the private sector, and I'm confident that CAAB and its
partners will be successful in attracting new supporters in the coming
months. By providing a more substantial government match, the MDA
proposal will allow us to devote more resources to the planning,
marketing and implementation tasks that will be so important to the
success of this program.
In summary, CAAB is very pleased to be part of this new initiative
to help strengthen marriages and families in the District of Columbia.
We commend Senator Brownback for his work on this proposal and we look
forward to working with East Capitol Center for Change, the National
Center on Fathering and other partners to bring savings and investment
opportunities to greater numbers of D.C. residents.
Finally, I would be happy to answer questions from Subcommittee
members regarding CAAB, IDAs, and our plans for implementing this MDA
program should Congress approve it.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE R. WILLIAMS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
URBAN FATHER-CHILD PARTNERSHIP, NATIONAL
CENTER FOR FATHERING, KANSAS CITY, MO
Senator Brownback. Mr. Williams, I have a note that
President and CEO of National Center for Fathering, Ken
Canfield, is here. Welcome, glad to have you here as well. Mr.
Williams.
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Chairman Brownback, for
championing families. And I will honor the time limit. When I
was 3 years old, an alarm sounded in the African-American
community but no one took action. That was 40 years ago when
then social scientist, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
sounded the alarm in the report, ``The Negro Family: The Case
for National Action''. He tried to alert our country to a
crisis in the black community that went to the very heart of
its survival, the failing black family.
He pointed out the signs of lower marriage and higher
father absence rates. Yet leaders turned a deaf ear. The alarm
has been re-sounded by groups such as the Morehouse Research
Institute and the Seymour Institute. They agree that the impact
of the decay of marriage and father presence has been enormous,
resulting in higher poverty rates among black families, school
failure among children, and the intergenerational transmission
of high teen pregnancy rates and female-headed households.
Social research has implicated fatherlessness as a key
contributing factor in violence, drug use, criminal behavior
and many other negative outcomes for children.
Consider this statement: Father absence is a form of child
abuse and neglect. As a man who shares the African heritage,
and a husband of 20 years, a father of four, Executive Director
of the National Center for Fathering's Urban Father-Child
Partnership, an associate pastor and a marriage and family
therapist, I say it is time to respond to this alarm with
vigorous action.
What kind of action? In 1890, 80 percent of African-
Americans were born to a married couple. That percentage
remained high until 1960, when 75 percent of African-Americans
were born into married couple families. Today, that percentage
has dropped to 28 percent. Also, only 48 percent of black
families are married mother-father couples compared to 83
percent of white families.
Unquestionably, one action required is training, to prepare
for marriage and to strengthen existing marriages. Yet, looking
deeper, an additional action is required.
The issues affecting marriage and fatherhood are as diverse
as they are complex. But the institutions of marriage and
fatherhood are also inextricably linked. The generational
breakdown of these two institutions has created a vacuum of
healthy models for social learning in the black community.
And in 7 years of working with urban fathers, I have
found--and the data supports me--that most men are further from
marriage than they are from fathering. The additional action
required is to help men move closer to marriage through father
training. Father training can give men the relational skills
and motivation that they need to strengthen their connections
to their children and their children's mother.
And in the long term, as men are awakened to their
fathering responsibilities, they are often drawn to marriage
because of its benefits to them and their children. It has
worked with dads in the urban core. LeOtis Brooks is an
example. He was drawn to marriage through fathering. He had
grown up under some bleak conditions. His father was killed
when he was 3, and his mother, struggling to support five
children, became an alcoholic.
LeOtis escaped with his life, but as an adult turned to
alcohol for another type of escape. He faced major challenges
as he became the father of eight children by four different
women, and one of the mothers sued him for unpaid child
support. For years, he had never really been an involved
father. His children needed much more than just money. We met
LeOtis in one of our fathering classes as a result of his child
support issues.
This legislation will provide training to help men like
LeOtis move closer to marriage through fatherhood. Our
curriculum, Quenching the Father Thirst, provides the core
training to train men to become responsible fathers/father
figures that love, know and guide their children to success.
This research-based curriculum is a blueprint for programming
interventions with fathers. You cannot simply talk men out of
something he's behaved his way into. You have to change the way
he thinks about being a father, the way he feels about being a
father, and what he does.
The results of the Quenching the Father Thirst classes have
received national attention. Since 1998, we've partnered with
the Jackson County, Missouri prosecutor to help low-income dads
who are in arrears with their child support reconnect with
their kids and fulfill their responsibilities as a father. To
date, Jackson County has invested $150,000 in father training
for just over 200 low-income dads and has received over $1
million in child support payments from those men. That's a 6:1
return on investment, outstanding for any investment.
Equally powerful are the stories of changed lives like
LeOtis'. For LeOtis, the story ended happily when he got the
help he needed as an alcoholic and an absent dad. LeOtis is now
happily married to the mother of two of his children, and has
good relationships with each of his eight children and their
mothers. He has retained and applied what he heard in the
fathering class, Quenching the Father Thirst.
I close with the final statement of Moynihan's report, ``A
Case for National Action'', which recommended that, ``The
policy of the United States is to bring African-Americans to
full and equal sharing in the responsibilities and rewards of
citizenship. To this end, the programs of the Federal
Government bearing on this objective shall be designed to have
the effect, directly or indirectly, of enhancing the stability
and resources of the African-American family. We can do
something great for the children of today by responding to the
alarm, so that 40 years from now they can look back and mark
this step as the day our Nation really took action on behalf of
families who are in need.''
I believe this legislation is supportive of this policy,
and I urge its passage into law.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Williams.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of George R. Williams
Chairman Brownback, Ranking Member Landrieu, and Members of the
Subcommittee: My name is George Williams: When I was three years old,
an alarm sounded in the African American community but nobody took
action. That was 40 years ago when then social scientist, the late
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sounded the alarm in the report, The Negro
Family: The Case for National Action. He tried to alert our country to
a crisis in the Black community that went to the very heart of its
survival, the failing Black family. He pointed out the signs of lower
marriage and higher father absence rates. Yet leaders turned a deaf
ear.
The alarm has been resounded by groups such as the Morehouse
Research Institute and the Seymour Institute. They agree that the
impact of the decay of marriage and father presence has been enormous,
resulting in higher poverty rates among Black families, school failure
among children, and the intergenerational transmission of high teen
pregnancy rates and female-headed households. Social research has
implicated fatherlessness as a key-contributing factor in violence,
drug use, criminal behavior and many other negative outcomes for
children. Father absence is a form of child abuse and neglect.
As a man who shares the African heritage, and a husband of 20
years, a father of four, executive director of the National Center for
Fathering's Urban Father-Child Partnership, an associate pastor and a
marriage and family therapist, I say it is time to respond to that
alarm with vigorous action.
What kind of action? In 1890, 80 percent of African Americans were
born to a married couple. That percentage remained high until 1960,
when 75 percent of African Americans were born into married couple
families. Today, that percentage has dropped to 28 percent. Only 48
percent of Black families are married mother-father couples compared to
83 percent of White families.
Unquestionably, one action required is training--to prepare for
marriage and to strengthen existing marriages. Yet, looking deeper, an
additional action is required.
The issues affecting marriage and fatherhood are as diverse as they
are complex. But the institutions of marriage and fatherhood are also
inextricably linked. The generational breakdown of these two
institutions has created a vacuum of healthy models for social learning
in the Black community. And in seven years of working with urban
fathers, I have found--and the data supports me--that most men are
further from marriage than fathering.
The additional action required is to help men move closer to
marriage through father training. Father training can give men the
relational skills and motivation that they need to strengthen their
connections to their children and their children's mother(s). And in
the long term, as men are awakened to their fathering responsibilities,
they are often drawn to marriage because of its benefits to them and
their children. It has worked with dads in the urban core.
LeOtis Brooks is an example of a dad who was drawn to marriage
through fathering. LeOtis grew up in bleak conditions. His father was
killed when LeOtis was three, and his mother, in her struggle to raise
five children alone in the inner city, turned to alcohol. When LeOtis
was eight, his brother was killed on his 7th birthday. LeOtis escaped
with his life, but as an adult turned to alcohol for another type of
escape.
LeOtis faced major challenges as he became the father of eight
children by four different women, and one of the mothers sued him for
unpaid child support. For years, he had never really been an involved
father; his children needed much more than just money. We met LeOtis in
one of our fathering classes as a result of his child support issues.
This legislation will provide training to help men like LeOtis move
closer to marriage through fatherhood. Our curriculum, Quenching the
Father Thirst, provides the core training to train men to become
responsible fathers/father figures that love, know and guide their
children to success. This research-based curriculum is a blueprint for
programming interventions with fathers. You cannot simply talk men out
of something they have behaved their way into; you have to change the
way they think about being a father, the way they feel about being a
father, and what they do as a father.
The Quenching the Father Thirst curriculum was designed to: provide
a framework for understanding the role of the father; address the
systemic barriers to fathering; give skills to enhance the father-
mother relationship; and provide training in specific skills for men to
become the fathers their children need.
The results of our Quenching the Father Thirst classes have
received national attention. Since 1998, we've partnered with the
Jackson County (Missouri) Prosecutor to help low-income dads who are in
arrears with their child support reconnect with their kids and fulfill
their responsibilities as a father. To date, Jackson County has
invested $150,000 in father training for just over 200 low-income dads
and has received over $1,000,000 in child support payments from those
men. That's more than a 6:1 ROI (Return On Investment)--outstanding for
any investment. Equally powerful are the stories of changed lives like
LeOtis'.
For LeOtis, the story ended happily when he got the help he needed
as an alcoholic and an absent dad. The prescription was an alcohol
treatment program and the Quenching the Father Thirst class. LeOtis is
now happily married to the mother of two of his children, and has good
relationships with each of his eight children and their mothers. He has
retained and learned to apply what he heard in the fathering class.
I close with the final statement of Moynihan's report, A Case for
National Action, which recommended that
``The policy of the United States is to bring [African Americans]
to full and equal sharing in the responsibilities and rewards of
citizenship. To this end, the programs of the Federal government
bearing on this objective shall be designed to have the effect,
directly or indirectly, of enhancing the stability and resources of the
[African American] family.''
You can do something great for the children of today by responding
to the alarm, so that forty years from now they can look back and mark
this step as the day our nation really took action on behalf of
families who were most in need. I believe this legislation is
supportive of this policy, and I urge its passage into law.
STATEMENT OF CURTIS WATKINS, PRESIDENT, EAST CAPITOL
CENTER FOR CHANGE, WASHINGTON, DC
Senator Brownback. Mr. Watkins, welcome.
Mr. Watkins. Good Morning, Mr. Chair, my name is Curtis
Watkins, I'm President of the East Capitol Center for Change
(ECCC). We are a youth and family development agency that
serves Wards 7 and 8 of the District of Columbia.
I would like to extend my thanks to the subcommittee for
inviting me to express my views on the importance of the
marriage development account appropriation and the role that
East Capitol Center would play in its implementation.
Mr. Chair, our mission is to assist youth, adults and
families to develop productive, happy and spiritually centered
lives, thus leading to the ability for that individual to make
a difference in their own community and teach others to do the
same. We have been offering after-school programs, in-school
mentoring and character development programs for youth ages 7
to 24 in some of Washington, DC's distressed neighborhoods
since 1996.
Much of that time, we have worked closely with local
churches and other community volunteers to promote marriage,
youth abstinence, family stability, and the successful reentry
of former prisoners to the neighborhoods we serve. And, in
conjunction with local employers, banks, and partner agencies
who are members of the Capital Area Asset Building, we have
helped youth and family heads of household to obtain
employment, improve financial literacy, and accumulate assets.
One of the things that I'm faced with in doing the work
that we do, because we do it from a grassroots perspective, is
facing some hard realities of seeing families whose children
are growing up with limited options. One example of a family of
six, the mother is living in public housing, the father has a
drinking problem, the grandmother is smoking crack, and the 16
year old daughter recently had a baby.
The daughter is showing signs that she has tendencies to go
toward street behavior. The 16 year old brother is cussing
everyone out in the household and telling them that he is going
to kill everybody, all the MFs. The daughter informed me that
if her brother came in her direction, she would take him out.
These are some of the harsh realities that are hitting us
on a daily basis. The 12 year old brother, which we were
personally working with in the juvenile court system had all
the support systems set up in place including our agency. He
was released and 1 day later, this young man was rearrested for
riding in a stolen car that struck someone and killed them.
These situations are common in the families we serve and
are increasing. Something needs to change, it's no longer
enough to tell people what not to do, we must show them through
positive role models of what they can do that are just like
them in order for them to be better.
The ``marriage gap'' among American families and
particularly pronounced in the lower income African-Americans
who reside in these communities within Ward 7 in which I grew
up and ECCC serves today.
The institution of the African-American families has been
hard hit by socioeconomic conditions brought on by years of
institutional racism and even public policies that have
discouraged the formation of two-parent low-income families.
As of the year 2000, 41 percent of African-American adults
were married, compared to 60 percent of whites and 60 percent
of Hispanics.
In 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his ``I Have
a Dream'' speech, more than 70 percent of all African-American
families were headed by married couples. Today, that number has
dropped well below 50 percent. Allow me to pause 1 minute to
say an important disclaimer.
ECCC and its partners have no intention of advocating
marriage or helping to preserve marriages in situations where
it would be unwelcome, unhealthy, or ill-advised, especially
where abusive or high conflict marriages exist or would be the
likely result. Marriage may not be for everyone.
In my opinion, far too many people are getting married for
the wrong reasons. In African-American communities, we really
see the good and bad side of marriage. However, given the
evidence on marriage's benefits as it's been stated today,
children in these communities are better off and will not shy
away from this subject where it's appropriately and prudently
raised.
This movement would allow African-American people to make
better choices, before jumping the broom. We don't celebrate
marriage enough or provide precounseling and postcounseling
from a community-based perspective. East Capitol Center for
Change's helping marriage and strong family initiative would
support the purpose of this legislation by working with a
strong and varied array of partners to provide events, also
workshops, public education activities, counseling and other
supportive services to primarily low income, and African-
American neighbors that we serve in the Washington, DC
community.
Our overarching goals are to generate a pro-marriage
movement throughout Ward 7 and Ward 8, which would extend to
the citywide movement. Goal two, would be to promote and
sustain healthy relationships among Ward 7 adults, families and
youth.
Goal three would be to reduce the stress that impedes
marriage, that leads to an overrepresentation of low income
African-American children experiencing the social ills like
poverty, substance abuse, and childhood mental illness. More
relevant to this legislation in hand, ECCC is a partner to the
African-American Healthy Marriage Initiative, and the D.C.
Metro Healthy Marriage Coalition.
As such, as a grassroots organization, culturally competent
approach, to foster healthy marriages and responsible
fatherhood, improving child well being and strengthening
families with the African-American community, the appropriation
funds would enhance and add components to our organization's
ability to service, along with our partners, workshops on
marriage and parenting from the African-American family life
education program, and workshops on, and access to resources to
address domestic violence.
We recognize, by the way, that this component is essential
to the safe and appropriate implementation of this work.
Character building and access to this curriculum within the
schools, churches, and community base settings. Activities,
services, and support groups for fathers. Referrals to highly
qualified pastors and other marriage counseling services where
couples have high conflict. Connection to employment which
would address this poverty issue, and also financial literacy
and free tax services we offer through our referrals. An array
of strong partners such as the East of the River Family
Strengthening Collaborative, Marshall Heights Development
Organization, the Capital Area Asset Building, and the D.C.
Cash Campaign.
In closing, I would too thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today. Also I would like to thank our
partners and friends for being here today and agreeing to be
part of the beacon of hope for our community.
I hope my testimony has helped to make clear why I believe
this appropriation is an important step in the right direction
for the fragile children and families my agency serves. The
board of the East Capitol Center for Change, most of whom, like
myself, are current or former members of the communities we
serve, would be proud to play a role in this movement. This is
a movement. This is not a program because what's going on in
our communities is so drastic that if we don't do something to
help our people, our people are going to go even further down.
Today, what I would like to do is introduce an engaged
couple. Sandy and Winston who are truly achieving against the
odds. They live in that same community that I talked about,
that family. They are one of the community's positive role
models that can demonstrate that it can work, that they are
willing to get married and they will share their story with you
also Mr. Chair.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Curtis Watkins
Good Morning, my name is Curtis Watkins, President of the East
Capitol Center for Change (ECCC), a youth and family development agency
that serves Wards 7 and 8 of the District of Columbia. I would like to
extend my thanks to the Committee for inviting me to express my views
on the importance of the Marriage Development Account appropriation and
the role ECCC would play in its implementation.
I'm facing some hard realties of seeing families whose children are
growing up with limited options. One example is a mother who is living
in public housing, the father has a drinking problem, the grandmother
is smoking crack, and the 16 year old daughter recently had a baby. The
daughter shows signs of an unhealthy life style of the street behavior.
The 16 year old brother informed the family that he is going to kill
everyone in the household using profanity, ``kill all you MF's.'' The
daughter informed me, and I quote ``I will take him out.'' The 12 year
old brother was released from juvenile court with all support system in
place including ECCC. He was rearrested one day later on Friday for
riding in a stolen car who killed someone. These situations and
families are increasing--something needs to change, ``it's no longer
enough to tell people what not to do, we must show them through role
models just like them.''
Over the last four decades of the 20th century, very large
increases in non-marital childbearing and cohabitation, as well as
higher rates of divorce and separation--have had a direct and profound
impact on the well-being of American children.
In 1998, only 68 percent of all children in the United States lived
with both parents (Lang and Zagorsky 2000), and more than half of all
children can now expect to spend at least some part of their childhood
in a single-parent family. In 2000, two in five children in families
headed by single women (39.7 percent) were poor compared to only 8.1
percent of children in married families (U.S. Census Bureau 2000).
(cited from Lerman, ``Marriage and the Economic Well-being of Families
with Children: A Review of the Literature,'' 2002).
The ``marriage gap'' among American families is particularly
pronounced for low-income African-Americans who reside in distressed
communities like those found in Ward 7 where I grew up and which ECCC
serves today. The institution of the African-American family has been
hard hit by socioeconomic conditions brought on by years of
institutional racism and even public policies that have discouraged the
formation of two-parent low-income families. As of the year 2000, 41
percent of African-American adults were married, compared to 62 percent
of Caucasians and 60 percent of Hispanics. In 1963 when Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. gave his ``I Have a Dream'' speech, more than 70
percent of all African-American families were headed by married
couples. Today, that number has dropped to well below 50 percent.
(Kinnon, 2003).
These changes in family structure have caused a great deal of
increases in child poverty between the early 1970s and the 1990s
(Lerman 1996; Sawhill 1999). In addition, the shift toward single-
parent families may have contributed to a higher incidence of other
social problems, such as higher rates of school dropouts, alcohol and
drug use, adolescent pregnancy and childbearing, and juvenile
delinquency (Lang and Zagorsky 2000; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994).
(cited from Lerman, ``Marriage and the Economic Well-Being of Families
with Children: A Review of the Literature.'' 2002).
Thus, advocates, providers, policymakers, and citizens who are
concerned about the well-being of our country's most fragile children,
must pursue programs that address poverty and family instability. In
particular, we must consider the large body of evidence that points to
the economic and social gains associated with marriage. Analysis of the
Urban Institute's National Survey of America's Families confirms that
being in a married two-parent family protects against hardship, no
matter what the family's immigration status, race, education level, and
member ages. Fewer than 4 percent of married two-parent families could
afford their rent and regular meals. The rates were 2 to 3 times higher
for cohabitating and single parents. Single parenthood remains a
crucial factor in keeping child poverty at alarmingly high 1970s
levels. Even after poverty rates declined during the 1990s, 35 percent
of families headed by single mothers experienced poverty while about 6
percent of married couples with children had incomes below the poverty
line. Research shows that the benefits of marriage extend to low-
income, less-educated women. A second earner need only provide $2,000-
$3,700 annually to be a financial plus to the household. (cited from
www.urban.org/content/IssuesInFocus, accessed 8-4-05).
Ultimately, research has shown that one of the greatest obstacles
to permanent unions among low-income people is not lack of desire, but
lack of resources. While marriage has come to be thought of as a
romantic institution over the course of the last two centuries, the
much longer history of marriage indicates that marriage has primarily
been a vehicle for improving the fortunes of one's children and one's
self. In some ways, the intent of this appropriation and my agency's
``Healthy Marriages--Strong Families'' Initiative is to change the old
negative concept of marriage to a positive concept by helping low-
income couples to see that even modest gains in the income or assets of
their potential partner translate into much greater well-being for
their family overall, provided that the relationship is stable and
positive in the first place.
Allow me to pause here for a moment for an important disclaimer:
ECCC and its partners have no intention of advocating marriage or
helping to preserve marriages in situations where it would be
unwelcome, unhealthy, or ill-advised, especially where abusive or high
conflict marriages exist or would be the likely result. Marriage may
not be for everyone. In my opinion, far too many people are getting
married for the wrong reasons. In African-American communities, we
really see the good and bad side of marriage. However, given the
preponderance of the evidence on marriage benefits for children and
communities, neither will we or do we shy away from this subject where
it can be appropriately and prudently raised. This movement would allow
African American people to make better choices, before jumping the
broom. We don't celebrate marriage enough or provide pre and post
counseling from a community based effort.
ECCC's ``Healthy Marriages--Strong Families Initiative,'' (HMSF)
will support the purposes of this legislation by working with a strong
and varied array of partners to provide events, performing arts,
workshops, public education activities, counseling and other supportive
services to specifically promote and strengthen marriage for the
predominantly low-income and African-American neighbors we serve in
some of Washington D.C.'s most distressed neighborhoods. Our
overarching goals and objectives are to:
Goal 1: Generate a Pro-Marriage Movement throughout Wards 7 & 8
Communities.
Objective 1.a: For single adults: in general, and with a high-
priority on reaching single fathers and mothers: inspire the attitude
that marriage is a viable and good option for people in loving,
committed relationships.
Objective 1.b: For Ward 7 Youth, grades 6-12: secure commitments to
abstinence and promote the attitude that marriage is the preferable
context within which to raise children.
Goal 2: Promote and Sustain Healthy Relationships Among Ward 7
Adults, Families and Youth.
Objective 2.a: For married and engaged couples in Ward 7: promote
strong, healthy marital relationships.
Objective 2.b: For non-custodial fathers: promote healthy bonds
with their children and with the mothers of their children, as
appropriate.
Objective 2.c.: For parents, in general: promote good parenting
practice and strong bonds with their children.
Goal 3: Reduce the Stressors That Impede Marriage, Reduce the
Quality of Family & Intimate Relationships, and Lead to Over-
Representation of Low-Income African-American Children and Families in
Social Ills like Poverty, Substance Abuse, and Childhood Mental
Illness.
Objective 3.a: For parents, fathers and mothers: increase their
income and employment.
Objective 3.b: For all target population groups listed in the
objectives above: increase financial literacy and assets.
Objectives 3.c: For all target population groups listed above:
provide education on and referral to direct services, as appropriate,
on substance abuse, domestic violence, and mental health.
The results we expect to achieve and measure for the families we
touch directly (2-5 year horizon) and East-of-the-River families
overall (5-10 year horizon) are:
--Pro-marriage attitudes among youth and adults--increase
--Percent of children living with two married parents--increases
--Births and birth rates to teens and unmarried women--drop
--Divorce rates for couples--drop
--Income for heads of household--rise
--Employment rate for heads of household--rise
--Financial literacy and assets for youth, singles, and heads of
households--rise
--Percent of children living in poverty--drops.
ECCC is not new to this work. Our mission is to assist youth,
adults, and families to develop productive, happy, and spiritually-
centered lives, thus enabling each individual to make a difference in
their community and to teach others to do the same. We have been
offering after-school, in-school, mentoring, and character-development
programs to youth ages 7-24 in some of Washington DC's most distressed
neighborhoods since our inception in 1996. For much of that time, we
have worked closely with local churches and other volunteers to promote
marriage, youth abstinence, family stability, and the successful
reentry of former prisoners to the neighborhoods we serve. And, in
conjunction with local employers, banks, and partner agencies who are
members of the Capital Area Assets Building, we have helped youth and
family heads of household to obtain employment, improve financial
literacy, and accumulate assets.
Most relevant to the legislation at hand, ECCC is a partner in the
African-American Healthy Marriage Initiative and the D.C. Metro Healthy
Marriage Coalition. As such, we offer a grass-roots and culturally-
competent approach to fostering healthy marriage and responsible
fatherhood, improving child well-being, and strengthening families
within the African-American Community.
For example, over the last several years, we have hosted a
successful community leadership exposition on marriage and various
``Celebration of Black Marriage'' events. Over the summer, we were
awarded a modest capacity-building partnership grant from the
``Marriage and Family Initiatives'' of the FranklinCovey Institute. We
used this partnership to host an ``Eight Habits of Successful
Marriage'' Certification Event, for 25-Ward 7 and DC-wide Marriage
Coalition facilitators in mid-September. These newly trained
facilitators will, in turn, give workshops on the Eight Habits of
Successful Marriage throughout Ward 7 and the D.C. area using their own
networks and resources to do so--thus creating a multiplier effect of
leaders in the marriage movement we intend to ignite for Wards 7, 8
and, perhaps, the District of Columbia as a whole.
To these activities and our already robust array of youth mentoring
and family strengthening activities, we will use our share of the
appropriation funds to enhance and add components as follows:
--A Public Education Campaign on the Benefits of Marriage and Healthy
Relationships.
--Workshops on Marriage and Parenting from the African- American
Family Life Education Program.
--A ``Marriage Savers'' Campaign and a ``True Love Waits'' Teen
Abstinence Campaign--in conjunction with our partner
congregations.
--Strategies adapted from the ``Marriage Savers Program'' to help
Unmarried Parents Consider Marriage, when appropriate.
--Workshops On and Access to Resources to Address Domestic Violence.
(We recognize, by the way, that this component is essential to
the safe and appropriate implementation of this work.)
--Various Family Fun Nights and Date Nights for Committed Couples.
--An annual retreat for Married Couples.
--Character-building and abstinence curricula for youth in school-,
church-, and community-based settings.
--Activities, Services, and Support Groups to Fathers.
--Referrals to highly-qualified pastors and other marriage counseling
resources when couple conflict is high.
--Connections to the employment, financial literacy, and free tax
preparation services we offer directly and through referral to
an array of very strong partners like the East River Family
Strengthening Collaborative, the Marshall Heights Community
Development Organization, Capitol Area Asset Building and the
D.C. CASH Campaign.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I hope my
testimony has helped to make clear why I believe this appropriation is
an important step in the right direction for the fragile children and
families my agency serves. The Board, staff, and volunteers of the East
Capitol Center for Change, most of whom, like myself, are current or
former members of the communities we serve, would be proud to play a
role in this movement.
STATEMENT OF WINSTON GRAHAM ACCOMPANIED BY SAUNDRA CORLEY
Senator Brownback. Please, welcome. I look forward to
hearing from you.
Mr. Graham. How are you doing?
Senator Brownback. I'm doing well, thank you.
Mr. Graham. How are you doing?
Senator Brownback. I'm doing great, thanks.
Mr. Graham. Well, we wrote a little something here. My name
is Winston Graham. And we--okay, wait a minute. We live with
our four children in Benning Terrace public housing complex in
Ward 7. My fiance, Saundra, will tell you a little more about
why we're getting married on November 26, and then I will
finish our testimony by telling you why we support an
appropriation for marriage development counseling in the
District of Columbia, especially for residents of low income
neighborhoods like ours.
Senator Brownback. Congratulations on getting married in
November, that's fabulous.
Ms. Corley. Thank you. Winston and I have been together for
20 years. And we have four children together. We live in the
Benning Terrace community located in Ward 7. For many of these
years, drinking and drugs were a part of our lives. Looking
back now, it feels like we were asleep and not living. Things
changed for us when we started going to our church, Peace
Fellowship and accepted help from organizations like East of
the River, Clergy-Police Community Partnership, and East
Capitol Center for Change.
Like a lot of my neighbors, I used to be suspicious of
anyone trying to help the community. But that changed when a
mentor came to befriend my daughter in the winter of 2005. I
saw that she really wanted to help us. And it made a
difference. I then started to ask for help for myself and my
whole family. I started working and getting involved in my
community, and our family started going to church regularly.
Other positive changes became a regular part of our lives,
and it was wonderful. We finally felt that we were on the right
track. Before these changes, we just were aware that there was
another way. There is no way to have a vision for something if
you've never seen it. Winston and I want to get married,
because we want to continue to make progress in our lives. We
love each other dearly and we love the Lord. We want the
basics, the norm in life, the whole family coming to the dinner
table at the same time.
Neither of us had stable families growing up. But we've
seen it so much at our church, and we want it for ourselves
now. Also our kids are asking questions such as why are you and
daddy not married. I have no answers to those questions. I want
to show them something better. Our neighbors who have known us
for years do not understand our wanting to get married. Just
the other day a neighbor asked me, why are you getting married.
Why do you want to get married. Why now, after 20 years?
I told her that we want the norm, and that we want to
progress in life together. She asked, are you forcing him to
get married? And I said no, he wants to get married as well.
Then she asked me again, why are we getting married. And I told
her that we love each other. She just could not comprehend the
need to get married. It's so unusual in our neighborhood.
Now that the date is coming and we're saying, I've got the
dress, we are inviting you, our neighbors are starting to
adjust to what is out of the norm for them. But they still
can't believe it. I know in their minds they are saying that we
are risking welfare money. Many have been in the system so long
that they just can't see another way. Just like we could not
see another way, until we were introduced to new friends and
new realities and new possibilities.
Mr. Graham. There are two reasons why we support this
program. The first is that we think it would help others to
decide to get married and our community needs more positive
examples of family. Just like Sandy and I learned from the
examples of other people, we want to be examples to others.
Most people don't call our neighborhood Benning Terrace--
they call it simple city. All of you may know that name too.
It's a name that speaks to the ghetto mentality that is common
in our neighborhood. We are a close knit family. People in our
community rarely see our children without me or Sandy. A lot of
kids don't have father figures, so they watch me closely.
As Sandy told you, some of our neighbors see our decision
to get married as a terrible mistake. We definitely have their
attention. They are watching us like they watch the drug
dealers and the negative things that happen in our
neighborhood. They say things to me like, you're the father of
the year for the third year in a row. They tell Sandy how lucky
she is that I am such a good father.
But I know that that is what I'm supposed to do for my
children. The community needs more people to stand up and say
I'm tired of living like this. Folks complain about the drug
dealers but they won't help the police stop them. All they
really want is more peace and harmony. But it's hard for those
to see how to get it.
As Sandy told you, we used to be like that. I know that if
one person stands up, then others will step up. I don't mind
being the first to do it. Since we've made changes, some other
people have made changes too. We really--we really see that.
This appropriation would help us and others to be good examples
for our community.
The second reason we support this appropriation is that we
would like to continue our progress as a family by getting a
house in our community. We love our community and we want to
stay in the area, but we want our place, with a backyard and
less chaos. We think this will be good for our children and use
as a--wait a minute.
Good for our children and just help other people, you know,
show them like we got help and we saw what was good, and we
just want to share it and keep moving forward. And just put our
faith in the Lord and these programs to help us.
Senator Brownback. God bless you for doing it. And I'm
delighted you're here to talk about it. And I want to wish you
all the best. You struck me with the number of neighbors that
are saying--I guess basically what they're saying to you is
you're crazy doing this. Getting married.
Now, what's the basis of that analysis? You mention an
economic basis apparently that they just think you're going to
lose all your welfare assistance, and is that the basic part of
it?
Ms. Corley. That's a big part of it, yes. They feel like
once you get married and a man comes in the household, that a
woman has--she's going to lose a lot of her benefits. And
benefits that we are receiving, they're not much. There are not
many, so to say--to lose any of it is just unthinkable to them.
Unthinkable.
Senator Brownback. For this man----
Ms. Corley. For this family as a whole. If this income is
not coming into the house or is broken by any means, it's
just--at this point, getting the income that they receive, it's
hard enough to get by with that. So to think that, you know,
any part of that will be taken away, it's unthinkable.
Mr. Graham. Or just relying on the man himself to take care
of the family.
Senator Brownback. Is unthinkable.
Ms. Corley. It's unthinkable for some of them.
Senator Brownback. Now, why that? Why is it--I guess is
this a bird in the hand, two in the bush----
Mr. Graham. It's been their trend so long.
Ms. Corley. Yeah. I mean----
Mr. Graham. I guess they are scared to step out there.
Ms. Corley. Right. This has been the norm for so long in
our community. I mean, there are mothers with their children,
with their children, that are having children that are in the
neighborhood. They've been there for 10 years or longer, you
know. These low income properties are usually transitional. But
they seem to be stuck in this mentality as where as they need
this income, these benefits. They--this is the way it's been
done for so long, they don't see any other way.
Senator Brownback. And they're just struggling day to day
to get by.
Ms. Corley. Exactly.
Senator Brownback. And so now you're risking the meager
amount you've got coming in, and that just seems----
Ms. Corley. Makes no sense to them at all.
Senator Brownback. Ridiculous that you're stepping out to
do something like that.
Ms. Corley. Right.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Graham, father of the year, which I
would take as a great honor. Why are you so unusual in your
community?
Mr. Graham. I'm all my kids' father. They don't have two or
three different fathers like a lot in our community. And I
spend a lot of time with my kids, take them to school, picking
them up, and people see me. And the store owners, I really
stick out in the community, not by choice. But just because I
do.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Saundra Corley and Winston Graham
Mr. Graham: Hello, my name is Winston Graham and this is my fiance,
Saundra Corley. We live with our four children in the Benning Terrace
public housing complex in Ward 7. My fiance will begin by telling you a
little more about who we are and why we intend to get married on
November 26, 2005. Then I will finish our testimony by telling you why
we support an appropriation for marriage development accounts in the
District of Columbia, especially for residents of low-income
neighborhoods like ours.
Ms. Corley: Winston and I have been together for 20 years and we
have four children together. We live in the Benning Terrace community
located in Ward 7. For many of these years, drinking and drugs were a
part of our lives. Looking back now, it feels like we were asleep and
not really living.
Things changed for us when we started going to our church, Peace
Fellowship, and accepted help from organizations like East of the River
Clergy Police Community Partnership and East Capitol Center for Change.
Like a lot of my neighbors, I used to be suspicious of anyone trying to
help the community, but that changed when a mentor came to befriend my
daughter in the winter of 2005. I saw that she really wanted to help
us, and it made a difference. I then started to ask for help for myself
and my whole family. I started working and getting involved in my
community, and our family started going to church regularly. Other
positive changes became a regular part of our lives, and it was
wonderful. We finally felt like we were on the right track. Before
these changes, we just weren't aware that there was another way.
There's no way to have a vision for something you've never seen.
Winston and I want to get married because we want to continue to
make progress in our lives. We love each other dearly and we love the
Lord. We want the basics, the norm in life--the whole family coming to
the dinner table at the same time to eat. Neither of us had stable
families growing up, but we've seen it so much at our church and we
want it for ourselves now. Also, our kids are asking questions such as
``Why are you and Daddy not married?'' I have no answers to those
questions. I want to show them something better.
Our neighbors who have known us for years do not understand our
wanting to get married. Just the other day, a neighbor asked me, ``Why
do you want to get married? Why now after 20 years?'' I told her that
we want the norm and that we want to progress in life together. She
asked, ``Are you forcing him to get married?'' I said, ``No, he wants
to get married as well.''Then she again asked me why we were getting
married, and I told her that we love each other. She just could not
comprehend the need to get married. It's so unusual in our
neighborhood. Now that the date is coming and we're saying, ``I've got
the dress and we're inviting you,'' our neighbors are starting to
adjust to what is out of the norm for them, but they still can't
believe it. I know in their minds they are saying that we are risking
welfare money. Many have been on the system so long that they just
can't see another way. Just like we could not see another way until we
were introduced to new friends, a new reality, and new possibilities.
Mr. Graham: There are two reasons why we support this
appropriation. The first is that we think it will help others decide to
get married and our community needs more positive examples of family.
Just like Sandy and I learned from the example of other people, we want
to be examples to others.
Most people don't call our neighborhood Benning Terrace. They call
it Simple City--all of you may know that name, too. It's a name that
speaks to the ghetto mentality that is common in our neighborhood.
We are a close knit family. People in our community rarely see our
children without Sandy or me. A lot of kids don't have father figures,
so they watch me closely. As Sandy told you, some of our neighbors see
our decision to get married as a terrible mistake. We definitely have
their attention. They are watching us just like they watch the drug
dealers and the negative things that happen in our neighborhood. They
say things to me like, ``There he go, father of the year for the third
year in a row.'' They tell Sandy how lucky she is that I am such a good
father, but I know that that is what I am supposed to do for my
children.
The community needs more people to stand up and say, ``I'm tired of
living like this!'' Folks complain about the drug dealers, but they
won't help the police stop them. All they really want is more peace and
harmony, but it's hard for them to see how to get it. As Sandy told
you, we used to be like that.
I know that if one person steps up, then others will step up. I
don't mind being the first to do it. Since we've made changes, some
other people have too--we're already seeing that. This appropriation
will help us and others to be good examples for our community.
The second reason we support this appropriation is that we would
like to continue our progress as a family by getting a house in our
neighborhood. We love our community and want to stay in the area, but
we want our own place with a backyard and less chaos. We think this
will be good for our children and us as a family. It's a path that
makes sense and it's what we dream about: getting married, having a
home, and making a better future for our children.
Up to now, we've been traveling on a very hard road, but the road
we are on now is so much better. We used to talk past each other, and
now we talk to each other. We didn't use to talk to anyone because we
were mentally stuck, worrying about keeping up with what everyone else
thought and did. We were stuck in the mud for years, not going up or
down. But now I can honestly say we've got traction. It's little things
that are different, like experiencing new things together. But mostly
it's about being around people who want the best for us. The pressure
is off from everyday confusion.
Ms. Corley: Yes, we have such peace now. God bless you for wanting
to help us and other people find and keep that peace. Thank you for
hearing our testimony.
Mr. Graham: Yes, thank you for listening. God bless you.
Senator Brownback. Well, let me get Mr. Williams involved
in this, because you made a really striking statement. I
thought that you bring dad's into the marriage--excuse me. You
bring husbands into the marriage as dads. And I took that to
mean that it's easier to get somebody to be a dad, than a
husband. Is that--am I understanding you correctly?
Mr. Williams. Well, there are more fathers out there than
there are husbands.
Senator Brownback. Okay. But am I misstating this, that
it's easier to get a guy to be a dad than it is to be a
husband.
Mr. Williams. Okay. Oh, yes. I understand what you're
asking. And it's just--what I see fathering is all about is
relational skills. And for a lot of men, it's easier to build
relational skills with their children.
Senator Brownback. With their children than with their----
Mr. Williams. That translate to--yeah.
Senator Brownback. Than with their wives or significant
other person.
Mr. Williams. Right. Right. And a lot of the men that I've
worked with in our programs, particularly through the fathering
counseling, there's that tension. Men and women in
relationships.
And one way I found that--helping the fathers to focus on
the needs of their child for their mother is a way to, you
know, start building that bridge. Relationally, with the
relational skills, but also for them to have incentive to build
their relationship, or strengthen their relationship with the
mother.
Senator Brownback. So you're using the piece of getting the
father to be a dad, to teach relational skills there between
the dad and his children, to be able to build the relational
skills between a husband and wife.
Mr. Williams. Yes, that's true.
Senator Brownback. And is that working pretty well?
Mr. Williams. Yes. It's remarkable to see the turnaround in
the relationships with the men. As you know, their relationship
with their child grows, that it's like, okay, I understand how
important this woman is to their child. And so there needs to
be a building of a relationship between myself and her.
Senator Brownback. It just seems backward to me.
Mr. Williams. Yes.
Senator Brownback. That, you know, you should first build
the relationship to the spouse. And then that one goes to the
children. But you're backing into it.
Mr. Williams. And it's not for every condition, but it's
for a lot of relationships that are already out there, where a
lot of men who have children by women, but don't have a
relationship with the women. This is the way to build that
relationship.
Senator Brownback. So you support this analysis. That you
back into it, somewhat through the children into building the
relationship as spouses.
Ms. Corley. Well, there's so many situations now, of single
mothers, or just maybe dating, still dating or whatever, and
not with the father of the child or whatever. So say that a
father comes into a relationship with a women who has about
four children or three or two, or whatever.
And there has to be some way to--even if he has some type
of relationship with the mother, and wants to be with them, has
to be some other importance to get him to grasp how important
it is--this family unit is.
And if it is going through the children at this point,
which is backward, then there are a lot of situations like
that.
Senator Brownback. I saw a program that some people were
starting up about encouraging mothers to marry the father of
their children. And I forget the name of it. But there was a
recent news article on this. And it looked like the impetus of
it was for the mother to recognize the significance of the dad
to the children. And the dad to recognize the significance of
the mother to the children.
And again, it was children centric, on getting the push to
take place. It just seems a different thought process, but then
I can see the motivation for doing that.
Mr. Williams. And the reason, once again, is because for a
lot of men, marriage is not on the radar. And, you know,
because they don't understand the importance.
Senator Brownback. But their children are on the radar.
Mr. Williams. Yes. And so it's kind of like flying under
the radar. Because once they see how important--or once they
establish the relationship with the child and see how important
the role of the mother is, okay, there's room for thoughts of
marriage now.
Senator Brownback. We've got to head for a vote that's on.
This has been very illuminating. This is something that a lot
of us policymakers have been struggling with for a long time.
Because we know if we can get children raised in stable
marriages, things improve. That is a given by all the data on
it.
So we're trying to figure out how to encourage stable
relationships. Marriages, men and women, raising kids. Just
good old fashioned stuff, and just how you do that. So maybe
these are ways to do that.
And I also think from what you're saying, Ms. Corley, we're
going to have to look in our welfare reform proposals, to
really incentivize marriage within the base funding. Because I
can see exactly what you're saying. They're just thinking day
to day. I don't care about the house and the white picket fence
right now. I've just got to get enough food on the table for
tonight. And so you've got to incentivize them to dream.
And I think we ought to be able to do that, so that people
wouldn't look at you and say you're crazy, but rather would
look at you and say you're crazy not to do that.
It's been very helpful. We'll have this proposal up on the
floor in a couple weeks. I hope it will pass, we're trying to
build a track record on this. I hope it's something that's
going to be considered even in the Katrina--post-Katrina work
where we work on issues of poverty, where we do talk about the
reestablishment of the institution of marriage. Particularly in
poor neighborhoods to try to improve that.
I was looking at the numbers the other day, that since we
started the war on poverty, our percentage of people in poverty
has not changed, it's still roughly about 13 percent. In spite
of us spending $3 or $5 trillion, an enormous price tag since
the 1960s and the percentage hasn't changed.
But you can see this break up of the family unit. And a lot
of it, you have to think is just based right around that. That
we've put a lot of money into the system. Culturally we've
discouraged the very foundations so it's like you're building a
house on a crumbling foundation and it's just not going to
stand if you can't get the bases right on it.
But we appreciate you being here. Any additional thoughts
or how we can design things will be helpful and well received
as well. Thank you very much. The hearing will remain open for
the requisite number of days if people choose to add additional
statements in the record.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Wayne Allard
Thank you, Chairman Brownback, for not only holding this
important hearing today, but also for authoring this new
program in the District of Columbia Appropriations Bill and
working to strengthen the institution of marriage here in the
Federal City.
The Senate has heard in testimony in various committees
over the last few years during a different debate on marriage
that the institution of marriage is a very positive thing. A
good marriage facilitates a more stable community, allows kids
to grow up with fewer difficulties, increases the lifespan and
quality of life of those involved, reduces the likelihood of
incidences of chemical abuse and violent crime, and contributes
to the overall health of the family. It is no wonder so many
single adults long to be married, to raise kids, and to have
families branching out in every direction.
Marriage has also been the foundation of every civilization
in human history. It crosses all bounds of race, religion,
culture, political party, ideology, and ethnicity. As an
expression of this cultural value, the definition of marriage
is incorporated into the very fabric of civic policy. It is the
root from which families, communities, and government are
grown. Marriage is the one bond on which all other bonds are
built.
I am pleased to see that the subcommittee is attempting to
combat the marriage issue that the District of Columbia is
struggling with by providing this incentive to save. I am very
supportive of all types of incentives for savings and
investment. The United States has one of the lowest savings
rate among industrialized countries. It is no secret that
savings benefits families. It helps to provide stability so
they can deal with a setback like a hurricane, job loss, or
medical problem, as well as being able to pay for education,
start a business, or buy a house.
I am proud that Senator Brownback has made the development
of Marriage Development Accounts a priority for our
subcommittee, and look forward to monitoring their progress in
the District of Columbia when the legislation is made official.
------
Letter From Legal Momentum
Legal Momentum,
Washington, DC, October 6, 2005.
Senator Sam Brownback,
724 Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC 20510.
Senator Mary Landrieu,
303 Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC 20510.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton,
2136 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, DC 20515.
Dear Senators Brownback, Landrieu and Delegate Norton: We, the
undersigned organizations are writing to express our deep concern
regarding several provisions in S. 1446, the pending District of
Columbia Appropriations bill, 2006. On their face, these provisions
appear to discriminate against single parents and their children, and
for that reason are likely unconstitutional. The bill includes a
``Marriage Development and Improvement'' program for the District of
Columbia initiated by Senator Brownback. The Brownback marriage program
would create Marriage Development Accounts (MDA's), which would provide
matching grants to low income couples who put aside savings to buy a
house, pay tuition, or start a business. Pre-Marriage Development
Accounts would also be created for engaged couples without children and
for childless single individuals aged 16-22. So, while married couples
(with or without children), childless couples and single individuals
would be eligible for the grants, widowed, divorced and other single
parents would not be.
While we strongly support government assistance for low income
parents, we feel that such assistance should be available to all
families, regardless of marital status. To do otherwise is to engage in
discrimination against single parents and their children, and to
further disadvantage a group of children who, through no fault of their
own, have only one parent, or whose parents are unmarried. Due to
divorce, separation, death, abandonment or because their parent never
married, more than half of all children growing up today will spend
some of their childhood in a single parent family. But single parent
families are no less worthy than married parent families and they
should not be treated as second class citizens. Indeed, the Supreme
Court held more than thirty years ago that discrimination against
unmarried families is an unconstitutional denial of the equal
protection of the laws. New Jersey Welfare Rights Organization v.
Cahill, 411 U.S. 619 (1973).
The undersigned groups would also like to express concern that the
``Marriage Development and Improvement'' program does not appear to
factor in the incidence of domestic violence among low income families.
We know that as many as 60 percent of women receiving welfare have been
subjected to domestic violence as adults (compared to 22 percent of
women in the general population).\1\ For abused women and their
children, marriage is not the solution to economic insecurity, yet pro
marriage policies or programs, particularly those that carry
significant financial incentives, may coerce battered women into
staying in dangerous situations. We are also concerned that government
promotion of marriage initiatives will have the consequence of
stigmatizing single and divorced parents, which will de facto make it
more difficult for some women to choose to leave unhealthy
relationships permanently.
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\1\ Tolman, R. and Raphael, J. (2000) A Review of Research on
Welfare and Domestic Violence www.ssw.umich.edu/trapped/pubs/html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As many of us have stated in relation to marriage promotion funding
being proposed as part of TANF reauthorization, in this time of
deficits and budget cuts, it is irresponsible to spend money in this
manner, particularly when the federal government is already spending
over $100 million on unproven marriage promotion programs.\2\ Further,
government involvement in highly personal decisions such as marriage is
a departure from our most basic principles; a threat not just to poor
women, but to all citizens who believe that liberty entails making
fundamental personal decisions without governmental interference. We
therefore urge that Senator Brownback's program not be funded unless
its discriminatory features are completely eliminated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ http://www.legalmomentum.org/issues/wel/WhatAlready.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sincerely,
9to5, National Assn of Working Women; Alternatives
to Marriage Project; American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME); Break the Cycle (Washington, DC);
Center for Family Policy and Practice;
Coalition Against Poverty; Coalition for
Social Justice; Committee to Aid Abused
Women; Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization
Project (CHAMP); D.C. Coalition Against
Domestic Violence (Washington, DC); D.C.
Rape Crisis Center (Washington, DC); Fair
Budget Coalition (Washington, DC); Family
Violence Prevention Fund; GenderWatchers;
Institute for Women's Policy Research
(IWPR); Jewish Women International; Legal
Momentum; Los Angeles Coalition to End
Hunger & Homelessness; National Center on
Domestic and Sexual Violence; National
Council of Jewish Women; National Council
of Women's Organizations (NCWO); National
Network of Abortion Funds; National Network
to End Domestic Violence; National
Organization for Women (NOW); National
Women's Alliance; National Coalition
Against Domestic Violence (NCADV); New
Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive
Choice; Northwest Settlement House
(Washington, DC); Ohio Empowerment
Coalition; Sasha Bruce Youthwork, Inc.
(Washington, DC); Statewide Poverty Action
Network of Washington State; Stop Family
Violence; Welfare Warriors of Milwaukee
Wisconsin; Whitman-Walker Clinic Legal
Services (Washington, DC); Wider
Opportunities for Women; Women's Committee
of 100; Working for Equality and Economic
Liberation (WEEL); YWCA USA; Zorza, Joan,
Esq., Editor, Domestic Violence Report &
Sexual Assault Report.
______
Prepared Statement of the Corporation for Enterprise Development
D.C. MARRIAGE DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTS BASED ON PROVEN SUCCESS OF
INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTS
CFED would like to commend Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) for his
initiative in utilizing the Individual Development Account concept to
help District residents build assets and create stronger families. This
measure will provide much-needed funding to support asset building in
the District's low-income communities. CFED encourages Congress to
include as many District residents as possible in this effort.
The Senator's proposal builds on more than a decade of research
proving that income and assets help low-income families achieve self-
reliance. For more than a decade, CFED pioneered and promoted matched-
savings accounts called Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) as a
financial savings product that helps low-income working Americans build
appreciating assets. IDAs are most commonly used for buying a first
home, acquiring a college education or job training, or starting or
expanding a small business.
Modeled on IRAs, IDAs provide an incentive to working families to
save their earnings, invest in their communities, and become
participants in the mainstream economy. For every dollar a family
saves, it receives a matching amount ranging from 50 cents to $4.
Currently, there are 500 IDA programs in the United States that serve
more than 20,000 savers. IDAs are based on the belief that savings and
asset accumulation is largely a matter of structure and incentives, not
merely personal preferences.
Senator Brownback's proposal would provide a grant of $1.5 million
to the Capital Area Asset Building Corporation (CAAB) to provide
matched savings accounts to married couples and youth and young adults
ages 16-22 without children. The grant would provide a generous match
(up to $9,000 for couples and $4,500 for individuals) with $3 of
federal funds and $1 of non-federal match funds for every $1 saved by a
participant.
To date, CFED's research has noted that only one-third of savers
nationally were married. In the District of Columbia, only 14 percent
of CAAB's IDA savers are married. The vast majority of adult IDA savers
are single women with children. CFED's research has not studied changes
of marital status due to the holding of assets. We are looking forward
to learning if the accumulation of assets and greater financial
security leads to a larger percentage of married IDAs savers.
In the past few years, there has been a great deal of momentum in
providing matched-savings accounts to youth. We are pleased that this
initiative provides financial education and savings opportunities to
young people. Our research demonstrates that youth who are approaching
the time they can actually spend the money accumulated in their IDAs
save more regularly and consistently.
We encourage Congress to continue testing various approaches to
enable all Americans to build assets.
CONCLUSION OF HEARING
Senator Brownback. The hearing is recessed.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., Thursday, October 6, the hearing
was concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
subject to the call of the Chair.]
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