Family poverty

Family poverty

At the beginning of the prosperous 1990's, Seccombe reports, "13.5% of the general population, 12.0% of families, and 19.9% of children in the United States, or nearly one child in five, lived in poverty."  Sadly, ten years later, not much had changed: "Despite a strong economy, a low rate of unemployment and relatively low inflation," Seccombe remarks," the percentage of individuals, families, and children in poverty at the end of the decade has been reduced by only 1% (or less)."  Why this strange persistence of poverty in a time of unprecedented economic expansion? Though changes in labor markets and in government benefits also figure in her explanation, Seccombe highlights the importance of  "an increase in single-parent families."

"Poverty," she writes, "has...increased during the past decade because of the rise in the numbers of single-parent families, particularly those with single mothers."  Whereas only 20% of children under 18 lived in single parent families in 1980, 25% did in 1990, and 28% in 1997.  "Nearly half (48.8%) of all female-headed households have incomes in the lowest quintile," Seccombe stresses, "compared with...only 12.7% of married-couple families.  More than one-third of female-headed households (35.8%) of female-headed households are poor."

For the sake of readers wondering why the economic situation of single mothers has not been ameliorated by increasingly vigorous efforts by the government to collect child support from their former spouses, Seccombe explains, "because the number of never-married mothers is large and growing rapidly (increasing in size [since 1976] from 17 to 46% of all single mothers), it depresses any improvement we might see in overall statistics."

Even the most affluent Americans cannot simply dismiss the plight of impoverished families as someone else's problem:  "Children reared in poverty," Seccombe warns, "have poorer physical and mental health, do worse in school, experience more punitive discipline styles and abuse, live in poorer neighborhoods, and are more likely to engage in deviant or delinquent acts."

(Source: Karen Seccombe, "Families in Poverty in the 1990s: Trends, Causes, Consequences, and Lessons Learned," Journal of Marriage and the Family 62[2000]: 1094-1113.)