July 11, 2004
ADD 1 AND DIVIDE BY 2:
Let Them Eat Wedding Cake (BARBARA EHRENREICH, July 11, 2004, NY Times)
Commitment isn't easy for guys — we all know that — but the Bush administration is taking the traditional male ambivalence about marriage to giddy new heights. On the one hand, it wants to ban gays from marrying, through a constitutional amendment that the Senate will vote on this week. On the other hand, it's been avidly promoting marriage among poor women — the straight ones anyway. [...]It is...unclear how marriage will cure poor women's No. 1 problem, which is poverty — unless, of course, the plan is to draft C.E.O.'s to marry recipients of T.A.N.F. (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Left to themselves, most women end up marrying men of the same social class as their own, meaning — in the case of poverty-stricken women — blue-collar men. But that demographic group has seen a tragic decline in earnings in the last couple of decades. So I have been endeavoring to calculate just how many blue-collar men a T.A.N.F. recipient needs to marry to lift her family out of poverty.
The answer turns out to be approximately 2.3, which is, strangely enough, illegal.
Which is precisely the point (*), no? It's much easier for a couple to hold down 2.3, or even 3.3, jobs than for an individual.
(*) 2003 Poverty Level for a Family of 4: 18,400
2.5 $8 an hour jobs--the going rate at local fast food places here--which are so hard up they're advertising for 15 year olds.
(40 x $8 =) 320
+ 320
+ 160
------------
= 800
x 52 (weeks)
-------------
1600
+ 40000
-----------
= $41,600
That would appear to be over twice poverty level for a married couple working just 100 hours between them per week at entry level positions in the economy. They could basically be maxing out Roth IRAs for both of them and have HSAs for all four on top of poverty level. If they live in the District of Columbia their kids will even get education vouchers. That's Opportunity.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 11, 2004 9:50 AMEhrenreich's credo is "it's too hard, so why bother". She, and most leftists, have the attituse that life should not be a struggle, they see no honor or value in the challenges of life. You don't measure the value of marriage by an income level, although by that standard marriage beats single-hood. For someone who will be struggling with poverty, isn't it much better to have a spouse to share those hardships with?
Another thing that she is missing is that married men make more money than single men, primarily because they have responsibilities to fulfill, as well as the fact that the restraining & softening influence of a wife keeps them healthier and happier and pulls them away from the risk taing behavior that single men are prone to.
Poverty is primarily an issue of character & values, not income distribution. Marriage is a character building institution for men and women, and is the best way to impart character & values on young people. That is the way out of poverty, not resentment.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at July 11, 2004 10:54 AM