April 16, 2008
Column #1,390
Advance for April 19, 2008
Taxpayer Cost of Divorce & Unwed Births: $112 billion
by Mike McManus
On April 15, tax day, the Institute for American Values and three
pro-family groups held a press conference to deliver a sobering analysis
that "at least $112 billion" of public costs stem from "family
fragmentation" caused by divorce and unwed births.
"This study documents for the first time that divorce and unwed
childbearing - besides being bad for children - are costing taxpayers a
ton of money," said David Blankenhorn, Institute president.
He noted that until now, marriage advocates based their support for
reducing divorce and out-of-wedlock births on two grounds:
1. Due to their religious faith, millions support marriage and oppose
divorce and unwed child bearing.
2. Social costs and human suffering as a result of broken homes is
thoroughly documented. For example, children of single parent families
are three times as likely to be expelled from school or become pregnant
as teens as those from intact homes and are five times as apt to live in
poverty. .
"However, marriage advocates have been tongue-tied on the economic
dimension of family fragmentation because we have not had good evidence,
no rigorous study producing hard data until today," Blankenhorn
asserted. "We had suspicions that family breakdown was costing taxpayers
a lot of money, but we did not have rigorous studies that gave us
compelling empirical evidence."
"Until today" when "The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed
Childbearing" study was released. "Now I believe you have a new tool in
your tool kit to make economic arguments. Policymakers, who are the
custodians of our tax dollars, like having things expressed in dollars
of public costs. This is what they are responsive to."
What are those costs? For, example, less than one percent of married
mothers are in poverty, but divorce pushes 24 percent of them into
poverty. Many subsequently go on welfare, start using food stamps,
housing and day care subsidies plus Medicaid, school lunch and breakfast
programs and Head Start.
Add to those numbers the fact that 38 percent of children are born to
unwed mothers, who get the same taxpayer provided assistance.
As children of broken families become teenagers, they are more than
twice as likely to commit a crime as those from intact homes. Single
adult males are similarly more likely to be criminals, generating
billions of costs for courts, police and prisons.
What if these single parents were married? Millions would be lifted out
of poverty and thus would need fewer taxpayer subsidies. Different
experts estimate that 65 to 80 percent of single mothers would move into
the middle class. To be conservative, the report assumed only 60
percent of females would escape poverty.
The report estimates that the federal, state and local cost of these
programs is $90 billion. In addition, the study reports that poverty
decreases income by $170 billion a year. The result is that $22 billion
less taxes are paid. Thus, the study estimates a total cost to
taxpayers of family fragmentation at $112 billion per year.
If anything, these estimates are low. They do not count the $40 billion
Earned Income Tax Credit, nine-tenths of which goes to single parents.
Nor the $13 billion of federal education subsidies for poor kids And
only 8.6 percent of criminal justice costs are counted when 56 percent
of those in prisons came from single parent homes.
Yet $112 billion is huge. Randy Hicks, president of the Georgia Family
Council noted the U.S. has spent $500 billion on the Iraq War over the
last five years - which is less than the $560 billion taxpayers spent on
consequences of divorce and unwed births.
To put it differently, the study estimated that even a 1% decline in the
divorce rate, for example, would save taxpayers $1.1 billion. Is that
possible?
The clergy of 114 cities adopted reforms to strengthen marriage that has
reduced divorce rates by an average of 17.5 percent in 114 cities,
according to an independent study. Austin, Kansas City and five other
cities slashed divorce rates in half. (Disclosure: I run Marriage Savers
which helped them.)
To date, only seven states are funding programs to strengthen marriage
and the spending is tiny. Texas set aside 1 percent of welfare spending,
$15 million over two years, to fund programs to reduce divorce rates.
However, this study provides evidence that there could be no better
public investment for all states than programs aimed at strengthening
marriage. Only 68 percent of children live with both parents today but
as recently as 1970, 85 percent were in intact homes.
Now marriage advocates have new ammunition for the fight.
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