Comments for The Travails of Single Parents at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 2 out of 2 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 22 May 2013 14:25:28 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-travails-of-single-parents#comment-17558 This is another one of those stupidities that pops up every 15 or 20 years, gets knocked down, retreats to the sidelines and then, reappears. (Dean Baker's paper on Social Security, written in the 1990s, can be trotted out to respond to the "we must cut Social Security" arguments for, oh, the next 20 years or so.) I remember when it came up during the Reagan years. They interviewed single mothers and the fathers of their children. I don't think I was having the appropriate reaction (let's send them down to City Hall and get them hitched asap), as my thoughts went, Young woman, it's bad enough that you dated this idiot. It's worse that he's the father of your child. But please, please, please, don't compound your error by marrying him. And it's all following Charles Murray, who seems to think that if the poorest 30% just went to church and got married, they'd do better living on poverty wages. Poverty wages are still poverty wages, with or without God and marriage. - PeonInChief Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:51:07 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-travails-of-single-parents#comment-17554 it isn't important what decade proved what. the fact is single mothers & their children have extremely difficult lives. most single moms who have children in their teens are never going to escape poverty nor will their children. the fact that so many 2 parent households also suffer from great poverty & both suffer from accelerating inequality is at once a tragedy & an indictment of what a failing system capitalism is. the fact that american leadership has no answers or even cares about poverty proves what a degenerating country we have become. - mel in oregon Wed, 18 Jul 2012 08:59:40 +0100