An economy that’s tearing our society apart

Posted on Monday, April 15, 2013 by Post Scripts

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Apr 15, 2013 12:00 AM EDT

The Washington PostPublished: April 14

The discouraging March employment report, with a job increase of only 88,000, raises questions well beyond the dreary state of today’s labor market. Prolonged high unemployment may be silently shredding the social fabric in ways that last for decades. Even before the Great Recession, men with a high school diploma or less faced lower wages and a harder time finding work. This made them less attractive as husbands, contributing to the growth of single-parent families. Stubbornly high unemployment almost certainly aggravates these destructive trends.

It’s hard to overstate the breakdown of marriage and the rise of single-parent families. Consider out-of-wedlock births. In 1980, about 18 percent of births were to unmarried women; by 2009, the proportion was 41 percent. Among whites, the increase was from 11 percent to 36 percent; among African Americans, from 56 percent to 72 percent; among Hispanics, from 37 percent (1990) to 53 percent. Or look at the share of children living with two parents. Since 1970, that’s dropped from 82 percent to 63 percent. Among whites, the decline is from 87 percent to 73 percent; among African Americans, from 57 percent to 31 percent; among Hispanics, from 78 percent to 57 percent.

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4 Responses to An economy that’s tearing our society apart

  1. Peggy says:
    Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    Just a reminder of what a hypocrite the president is. He too needs to go so real reform can take place to bring our economy back.

    Clean the Congress of all Progressives in 2014 and the WH in 2016!!

    The Quote of the Decade:

    “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better”.

    ~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

  2. J. Soden says:
    Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at 1:55 pm

    Failure to count those who have quit looking for work in the “unemployment reports” skews the numbers.
    Funny how those numbers are always “revised” about a month after they are initially issued – and NOT in the direction of a good economy.

    There is NO leadership in this white house. Just a resident who vacations, plays golf, jets around making inane speeches on Air Force One, and parties hard all at taxpayer expens$e while sequester cuts are implemented.

    Yes, Americans CERTAINLY deserve better!

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