{"id":520819,"date":"2010-04-08T16:58:50","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T20:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/what-you-won-t-read-media-about-new-birth-data-42008\/"},"modified":"2010-04-08T16:58:50","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T20:58:50","slug":"what-you-won%c2%92t-read-in-the-media-about-the-new-birth-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/520819","title":{"rendered":"What You Won\u0092t Read in the Media about the New Birth Data"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 04.08.10 09:00 AM posted by Christine Kim<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released preliminary U.S. birth data for 2008<\/a>.* A flurry of news stories followed.<\/p>\n

Two statistics dominated the headlines: the total number of births fell by 2 percent, after peaking in 2007, and teen birthrates declined as well, reversing a slight two-year uptick.<\/p>\n

But the mainstream media completely ignored the most genuinely concerning trend in childbearing.* In 2008, more than 4 in 10 children, or about 1.7 million births, were born to unmarried mothers.<\/p>\n

For decades, unmarried childbearing has been trending unrelentingly upward.* In 1960, about 5.3 percent of all births were to unmarried mothers.* Ten years later, it had doubled to 10.7 percent.* By 1980, it was 18.4 percent, and in 1990, 28 percent.<\/p>\n

The 1996 welfare reform, which aimed to reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing as it is a primary cause of child poverty, slowed its growth rate for a few years, but by 2003, it resumed the dramatic climb, an increase of 17 percent in 5 years.<\/p>\n

In 2008, 40.6 percent of all births in the U.S, were to unwed mothers, according to the new CDC report.* While unwed teenage childbearing comprised one-half of all unmarried births in 1975, in 2008, the 133,000 births to those under age 18 comprised less than 8 percent of all unmarried births (22 percent if 18- and 19-year-olds are included).<\/p>\n

Indeed, out-of-wedlock childbearing has largely become a twenty-something phenomenon.* About 37 percent of all unwed births were to the young twenty-something, and another 23 percent to unmarried women in their late twenties.<\/p>\n

Why should the steady increase in unwed childbearing concern the public?<\/p>\n

For one, \u0093the 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births are an overwhelming catastrophe for the taxpayers and society.\u0094 Heritage senior research fellow Robert Rector explains:<\/p>\n

The steady growth of out-of-wedlock childbearing and the general collapse of marriage lie at the heart of the mushrooming welfare\/dependence state.* This year taxpayers will spend over $300 billion providing means-tested welfare aid to single parents.* The average single mother receives nearly three dollars in government benefits for each one dollar in taxes paid.* These subsidies are largely funded by the heavy taxes paid by higher income married couples.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The public cost of unwed childbearing is burdensome, but weighty social concerns loom large as well.* Heritage\u0092s Robert Rector further explains:<\/p>\n

The U.S. is rapidly evolving into a two caste system with marriage and education at the dividing line.* Children in the top half of the population are born to married couples with a college education; children in the bottom half are born to single mothers with a high school degree or less.<\/p>\n

The disappearance of marriage in low income communities is the predominant cause of child poverty in the U.S. today.* If poor single mothers were married to the fathers of their children, two thirds would immediately escape from poverty.* In addition, the absence of husbands from the home is a strong contributing factor to crime, school failure, drug abuse, emotional disturbance and a host of other social problems.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And how have the Obama administration and the Congress responded to these worrying trends?<\/p>\n

They have proposed to effectively eliminate the only remaining federal program to strengthen marriage<\/a>.* Instead, the administration and the Congress have created two new programs, including one in the healthcare legislation, that implicitly endorse a message of permissiveness among teens.* Costing about $200 million per year, the new programs fund additional comprehensive sex-ed, and add to the existing $610 million per year<\/a> that already support these programs.<\/p>\n

For five decades, unwed childbearing has risen steadily, with no indication of relenting. Yet the only government response has been to spend more, a failing solution that also undermines the institution of marriage.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/04\/08\/…ew-birth-data\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 04.08.10 09:00 AM posted by Christine Kim Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released preliminary U.S. birth data for 2008.* A flurry of news stories followed. Two statistics dominated the headlines: the total number of births fell by 2 percent, after peaking in 2007, and teen birthrates declined as well, reversing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}