Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

letter to the editor:

Take action to fix the poverty cycle

On the March 19 opinion page, columnists George Will and Nicholas Kristof discussed the failure of the welfare system to reduce poverty. They both emphasized how the family structure has been destroyed by the skyrocketing number of single-mother births. The statistic that children of unmarried mothers are five times as likely to live in poverty as children of married couples points to the root cause. The probability that single-mother children will graduate from high school and find employment is very low, and their delinquency and drug use rates will be much higher.

It’s time for our politicians to stop the wealth inequity rhetoric and start doing something to solve the poverty cycle. Raising welfare payments for two-parent families might be a start. So might subsidizing companies to hire people on welfare. Maybe even paying unwed mothers not to have more children. But the cycle will only continue if the problem isn’t addressed.

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