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Marriage Decline Weakens Middle Class
Newsmax ^ | Wednesday, 19 Dec 2012 10:27 AM | Kathleen Parker

Posted on 12/19/2012 11:58:34 PM PST by Olog-hai

As politicians compete to prove who loves the middle class more, they’re missing the elephant and the donkey in the room.

The middle class needs not just tax breaks and jobs, but also marriage.

This is the finding of a new University of Virginia and Institute for American Values report, “The State of Our Unions,” which tracks the decline of marriage among the nearly 60 percent of Americans who have high school but not college educations.

This not only has far-reaching societal repercussions, but economic as well. By one estimate cited in the report, which was authored by five family scholars, the cost to taxpayers when stable families fail to form is about $112 billion annually—or more than $1 trillion per decade. …

(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Education; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: family
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1 posted on 12/19/2012 11:58:38 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai
This not only has far-reaching societal repercussions, but economic as well. By one estimate cited in the report, which was authored by five family scholars, the cost to taxpayers when stable families fail to form is about $112 billion annually — or more than $1 trillion per decade.

Atlas shrugging takes many forms.

2 posted on 12/20/2012 12:07:09 AM PST by SIDENET ("If that's your best, your best won't do." -Dee Snider)
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To: Olog-hai

We’re only about a generation away from being a giant ghetto.


3 posted on 12/20/2012 12:53:40 AM PST by Catmom
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To: Catmom

Well, duh. It is much more financially lucrative to “not” marry.

As I have said on this forum for TEN YEARS now, to derision of the snotty class: We have our own people who need jobs that will pay a wage that takes care of a family. These are people who are not cut out for college or a high-paying trade. There are tens of millions of them...and our imbecilic leaders have given away their meager dreams to China & a bunch of usurping Mexicans.

I wonder what these geniuses expected to happen when a single mother has a better lifestyle on “benefits” than she would if she married the Father?

This should be titled “Marriage Declines Due to the Weakened Middle Class.”


4 posted on 12/20/2012 1:29:04 AM PST by garandgal
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To: garandgal

The marriage decline happened first, though.


5 posted on 12/20/2012 1:42:58 AM PST by Olog-hai
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To: SIDENET

I think most people don’t even want to consider that possibility.


6 posted on 12/20/2012 1:43:36 AM PST by MetaThought
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To: Olog-hai

The children of the middle class need marriage too. Fatherless families have produce a class of adult males with the moral comprehension of children.

While the stigma of out of wedlock pregnancy has been diminished to the point of zero so has the one hope a young boy might have for some direction in his life while growing up fatherless.


7 posted on 12/20/2012 2:05:27 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Olog-hai

When did Kathleen Parker decide to be conservative again? Wasn’t she the turncoat from CNN? AKA the female David Frum/David Brooks?


8 posted on 12/20/2012 2:21:56 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: Olog-hai

Political mavens have been all over to explain Romney’s loss to Obama, but few, if any, have cited the rise of single parent households which I believe has an enormous influence on which party will prevail.


9 posted on 12/20/2012 2:34:43 AM PST by monocle
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To: Olog-hai

The maturing process that comes from making a marriage work helps in other areas of life as well. People that resist marriage so they don’t have to grow up only hurt themselves. People that marry but refuse to mature unfortunately hurt others as well.


10 posted on 12/20/2012 3:30:39 AM PST by freedomfiter2 (Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.)
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To: count-your-change

Well my boy is 4 and is hrowing up in a two parent house and it seems most of the kids in his preschool are two parent houses. Granted, it is and expensive private school right next to an Air Force Base, buy there isn’t zero hope, just a slim hope.


11 posted on 12/20/2012 3:37:04 AM PST by wolfman23601
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To: Olog-hai
The marriage decline happened first, though.

No it did not...maybe amongst black families, but no other. Perhaps you were confused when I said that I had been pointing this out for ten years..I am an early Freeper from back in 2001.

This economic mayhem for the middle class has been GOING ON since the 80's; I should have been more clear.

It's really quite simple. When Daddy makes enough to provide a better lifestyle than Uncle Sam, there will be marriage...as in anything else in life...follow the money.

12 posted on 12/20/2012 4:08:59 AM PST by garandgal
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To: Olog-hai; mgist; raptor22; victim soul; Isabel2010; Smokin' Joe; Michigander222; PJBankard; ...
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13 posted on 12/20/2012 4:11:54 AM PST by narses
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To: Olog-hai; mgist; raptor22; victim soul; Isabel2010; Smokin' Joe; Michigander222; PJBankard; ...
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14 posted on 12/20/2012 4:12:18 AM PST by narses
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To: garandgal

It definitely goes back further. The divorce culture was really roaring back into vogue post-WWII (since there was no legal no-fault, a great deal of the divorces were “uncontested”), and the welfare state stuck the knife in deeper. Economic prosperity does not cause strong families; it’s the other way around, and that is why the Founding Fathers stressed religion and private morality, not Mammon.


15 posted on 12/20/2012 4:12:38 AM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai; mgist; raptor22; victim soul; Isabel2010; Smokin' Joe; Michigander222; PJBankard; ...
+

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16 posted on 12/20/2012 4:13:26 AM PST by narses
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To: Olog-hai

Big government fouls everything it touches. Somehow that truth gets lost on people here when it comes to using big government to meddle in the private lives of others. Marriage should be a pact between the two people involved and their church with the only legal consideration being the seamless trasfer of assets upon the death of one spouse.

But instead you all demand that it be a federal public/private partnership, complete with permission slips from the feds, middle class welfare payments and incentives to the states to break up more than half of those partnerships.

It might feel good to blame this mess on the homosexuals and gangsta rap, but every effort you make to get the government to “save” an institution where it has zero constitutional authority only makes matters worse.


17 posted on 12/20/2012 4:36:48 AM PST by Orangedog (An optimist is someone who tells you to 'cheer up' when things are going his way)
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To: Olog-hai

...authored by five family scholars....

&&&
Odd phrasing.

I have a huge extended family, as my parents had 9 children. So, at any given time, I can probably name 5 family scholars.


18 posted on 12/20/2012 4:51:24 AM PST by Bigg Red (Sorry, Mr. Franklin, I guess we couldn't keep it.)
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To: Olog-hai

That’s okay with most politically active adults. Perpetually amorous Sandra Fluke has free birth control, and that is the priority for 51% of voters (a substantial percentage of whom are customers of hers).


19 posted on 12/20/2012 5:01:43 AM PST by Pollster1 (Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Olog-hai
I don't know why other people aren't getting married, but I'm not getting married because women are awful. Everyone balks about homosexuals trying to redefine marriage, but they are only following the example of women before them.

Wives aren't supposed to be "partners," and they certainly aren't supposed to be bosses. Wives are supposed to be chaste, subordinate, kind, gentle keepers or the home and children. In case you hadn't noticed, women are tyrannical thugs who hate children, and hate their homes. They dump kids in God-forsaken public schools, or worse, murder them before they are even born, so they can be "free" to escape their responsibilities at home. The ones that bother to earn money instead of collecting child support and welfare use it to fill their debt-heavy home with cheap Chinese garbage. And I'm supposed to not only accept all this evil, I'm supposed to adjust my life to better accommodate her plans. No thanks.

You can blame government all day, but I doubt highly that government can force women to be awful, materialistic child-haters. It is clearly their natural state.

20 posted on 12/20/2012 6:28:19 AM PST by Anti-Utopian ("Come, let's away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds I' th' cage." -King Lear [V,iii,6-8])
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