Rand Paul's Deluded Fantasy that Marriage Magically Fixes Poverty [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/rand-pauls-deluded-fantasy-marriage-magically-fixes-poverty




Sen. Rand Paul is, once again, confused. Recently, he told a Chamber of Commerce gathering that being “married with kids versus unmarried with kids is the difference between living in poverty and not,” and that the government “should sell that message.”

Sen. Marco Rubio is similarly flummoxed. “The truth is,” he said, “that the greatest tool to lift people … from poverty is one that decreases child poverty by 82 percent. But it isn’t a government program. It’s called marriage. Fifty years ago today, when the War on Poverty was launched, 93 percent of children in the United States were born to married parents. By 2010, that number had plummeted to 60 percent. It shouldn’t surprise us that 71 percent of poor families with children are families that are not headed by a married couple.”

Conservative pundits, for their part, are falling in line, with the Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker claiming that “marriage creates a tiny economy fueled by a magical concoction of love, selflessness and permanent commitment that holds spirits aloft during tough times.” The New York Times’ Ross Douthat takes for granted that marriage leads to economic stability, and David Brooks has simply thrown up his hands: “It would be great if we knew how to boost marriage rates, but we don’t,” he writes.

So why don’t poor women take that simple step, get married and end their poverty? The answer, of course, is that things are not so simple, and that despite conservative ideology’s faith in it, marriage is not the cure for poverty.