Without any doubt, America’s biggest problem is family disintegration - families being the primary transmitter of social capital.
In 1964, Pat Moynihan, then in Lyndon Johnson’s labor department, produced a report called “Crisis in the Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” In it, he said there is a “crisis in the negro family today because 24% of negro children are being born to unwed mothers.”
Today, that figure is 72% for African Americans!
52% for hispanics.
Today ONE THIRD of ALL American children, all races and creeds, are born to unwed mothers.
Again, in 1964 there was a crisis because 24% of African American children were born to unwed mothers, today 33% of ALL americans are born out of wedlock.
We know what this means.
We know the social pathologies that correlate with this.
Particularly, we know of the problem of a constantly renewed cohort of essentially badly parented adolescent males without fathers in the home. We know what that means in terms of tumultuous neighborhoods and schools that can’t teach.
We don’t know why it happened.
We have no idea why, in 1950’s, the out of wedlock birthrate was 5%, and today it’s 33%.
We’ve seen family disintegration during war, famine and pestilence, but this happened in peacetime.
What do you think is the cause, and what can be done to set us on the correct course?
