Family Breakdown Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

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New Trump Admin Policies Promote Marriage, Having Kids

February 10, 2025/in Commentary, Elections, Hot Topics, Immigration, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science, Social Issues/by Family Research Council

In a clear contrast from the previous administration, the Trump administration is signaling that they are working to implement policies that support marriage and families and encourage couples to have children.

This week, Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy issued a memo announcing that the federal agency would “prioritize projects and goals” that “direct funding to local opportunity zones” and that “mitigate the unique impacts of DOT programs, policies, and activities on families and family-specific difficulties, such as the accessibility of transportation to families with young children, and give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”

Brad Wilcox, a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and sociology professor at the University of Virginia, called the new policy “a very big deal,” writing that it “represents a creative move by one cabinet secretary in the Trump administration to take family policy in a new administrative direction — to boost the fortunes of the family not just through new laws but also new regulations, in an age when marriage and fertility rates in America have hit record lows.”

Wilcox went on to observe that the move “is likely to reorient transportation dollars to lower-density communities where there are more single-family homes, family life is often more affordable, and family formation is higher. So, more money for highways, and less for subways and light rail. This suggests that suburbs, exurbs, towns and rural communities where families with kids are more common are more likely to benefit from this Trump administration move.”

The DOT policy will likely be just the beginning of the family-focused policies that the Trump administration will attempt to implement. On the campaign trail last year, President Trump signaled that he would pursue the “maximum” for the child tax credit, which his first administration doubled to $2,000.

Vice President J.D. Vance has also emphasized that the Trump administration will prioritize expanding the child tax credit as well as other family-friendly policies, as he described during an interview on the campaign trail last August:

“[W]hat President Trump and I want to do on family policy is make it easier for families to start in the first place. We want to bring down housing costs so that if you have a baby, there’s actually a place to raise that baby. [We] want to increase and expand the child tax credit. We want to make it easier for moms and dads to not be shocked by these surprise medical bills when they go to an out-of-network provider. We’re working on all this stuff, and I think that’s ultimately how we turn down the temperature a little bit, is to make it easier to choose life in the first place. Because when you talk to women, you talk to moms and dads, a lot of times they feel like, if you have a pregnancy, especially an unexpected pregnancy, there just aren’t options. We want to provide more options so that people are raising families in a thriving and happy way in this country.”

Wilcox believes that affordable housing should indeed be high on the new administration’s to-do list. “Legislatively, the new administration should work with leaders in the House and Senate to get some version of Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s HOUSES Act (Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter Act) passed, which would lead to the construction of more than 2 million homes by turning over existing federal land to development,” he argued.

In addition, he contended that “the Trump team could take regulatory actions at the Department of the Interior, HUD and the Department of Agriculture to eliminate regulations that make building homes more expensive and possibly even turn over public lands to development.”

Compared to Trump’s first administration, “there are growing signs the second Trump administration will move much more aggressively to make America more family friendly,” Wilcox remarked.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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Less Work, More Welfare: How Immoral Policies Are Making Americans Poorer

January 17, 2025/in Communism, Elections, Hot Topics, Immigration, Marxism, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Socialism/by Family Research Council

A new report shows that over the last four decades, poor Americans have become far more likely to receive their daily bread from welfare than work. This slide from self-reliance to government dependence serves as an economic barometer of American decline, fueled by perverse incentives created by morally challenged government policies.

The numbers paint a stark picture of American indolence. In 1979, Americans living in poverty earned 60% of their income from work. In 2021, the share had fallen to 25%. That analysis from the Congressional Budget Office shows the startling degree to which, in 42 years, Americans have moved steadily from a paycheck to a handout.

“Low-income Americans are receiving an ever-growing share of their financial resources from government transfers, not work,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who requested the report, in a statement emailed to me. “To improve our nation’s welfare system, we must pursue policies that will lift more Americans out of poverty — including strengthening incentives to seek a job like tying benefits to commonsense work requirements. This will help more of our fellow Americans achieve independence and gainful employment. After all, a job is the best anti-poverty program that exists.”

Smith is to be commended for requesting this report and focusing on a policy solution. The report reveals that some of the great drivers of joblessness are political, some personal. But, as secular government analyses always do, this study ignores the moral components underlying increased welfare dependence.

The fact that more Americans have come to rely on welfare serves as an indictment of a nation that has forgotten the Apostle Paul’s admonition, “If any would not work, neither should he eat” (II Thessalonians 3:10). God gave Adam work to do in the Garden of Eden before the fall and, in the post-exilic world, He intended work to supply our daily needs (Genesis 2:15; Proverbs 6:6-11 and 12:11). Honest work, combined with frugal living, allows Christians to care for the needs of others (II Corinthians 8:13-15; I Timothy 5:3-16).

While some percentage of Americans lack the physical or mental ability to earn a living, the ever-growing number of Americans on welfare rolls far outstrips that of its incapacitated recipients. That proves Americans have lost sight of biblical importance of work: Work benefits our souls, improves the raw materials bestowed in God’s creation, enhances our God-given talents, allows us to provide for our own needs while serving others, and allows us to provide for those truly unable to participate in this ennobling cycle.

The Apostle Paul showed the excellence of work by working as a tentmaker in order to carry out his missionary work. St. Jerome — who translated the Bible into Latin, the language of the West — once asked a monk the same question idle Christians should ask themselves: “If apostles who had the right to live of the Gospel labored with their own hands that they might be chargeable to no man, and bestowed relief upon others whose carnal things they had a claim to reap as having sown unto them spiritual things; why do you not provide a supply to meet your needs?”

When followed, the biblical plan still works. Only 2.5% of Americans who work full-time fell below the poverty level, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another study found only 1.7% of Canadians who worked full-time lived in poverty. In other words, work eliminates nearly 100% of all poverty.

Perhaps more importantly, this report serves as an indictment of family breakdown. “Of the four types of households examined, unmarried households with children had the highest percentage of people with money income below the poverty threshold,” found the report. That reinforces government statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, which reported, “Of people in families, those in married-couple families had the lowest poverty rate (5.2 percent), while those in female-householder families had the highest (23.6 percent).” Both homes led by single mothers and households with cohabiting partners had four times the poverty level of married couples.

On the other hand, traditional married families earned the most money, with a median income of $119,400 in 2023, compared to $59,470 in homes led by single mothers. Even in families where only one person works, single mothers were more than three times as likely to end up in poverty than married couples. In fact, single mothers earn just over $5,000 a year more than single men without children (and thus, without incentives to earn more).

Can it be a coincidence that the number of married households in America has fallen from 71% in 1971 to 47% in 2022? When mothers and fathers cannot take their place in God’s order, and children lack the example of a working father, society sets young people up for a life of government dependence and wasted potential. And our reduced GDP is the least consequential result.

America’s retreat from work serves as an indictment of our welfare system. After the Left’s purposeful throttling of President Donald Trump’s red-hot economy in the name of COVID-19, Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending spree gave workers collecting unemployment a $300 weekly bonus. That surplus gave approximately one in four workers more money than they could earn by working. One study showed that policy alone depressed employment by approximately 14%.

The report also shows the problems presented by counterproductive economic interventionist policies that destroy jobs and opportunity. Politicians promote tax-hikes that raise prices, massive spending that fuels inflation, and subsidies for unpopular products such as electric vehicles — all of which distort the market — for short-term political gain. For example, a minimum wage when raised too high prices out the poorest and neediest from the job market. The CBO estimated a proposed minimum wage hike would give workers an average of $50 a week — and throw 1.3 million people out of the workforce, reducing GDP by $9 billion.

The report also points an accusing finger at our nation’s immigration system. The recent H1-B visa debate provided a healthy spasm against a corporatist immigration system starving American families of good opportunities. During the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration, all net job growth has gone to immigrants. Between 2019 and late 2023, 2.9 million immigrants took U.S. jobs, while 183,000 American citizens left the job force. Mass immigration — illegal and legal — reduces wages, making a welfare check seem far more inviting than 40 hours of toil.

Finally, the report presses charges against American Christians. Why are churches not providing charity on a grander scale for those in need? Why have private citizens outsourced essential functions — like fulfilling Christ’s commandment to feed the hungry and clothe the naked — to the secular state? Government benefits lead to an attitude of entitlement and enable self-destructive pathologies. Secular programs cannot cure the problems secularism created.

Churches alone stand in the position to address the underlying issues that keep sidelined Americans out of the workforce — addiction, depression, lack of motivation, family commitments, lack of child care, etc. — and to elevate even seemingly mundane work to its true spiritual significance.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

Fathers Are Crucial to Healthy Outcomes for Kids, Studies Confirm

June 22, 2023/in Commentary, Culture War, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Science, Social Issues/by Family Research Council

As the U.S. celebrated Father’s Day 2023, two recent studies confirm that fathers play a central role in the mental health and behavior of their children.

In a report that compared dozens of studies conducted between 1987 and 2022, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) found “clear correlations between children raised in fatherless homes and developmental challenges ranging from bad grades, anxiety, and suicide to violent behavior, drug use, and criminality.”

The report pointed out the extent of fatherlessness in America, with 18.3 million children who currently live without a father in the home, or about one out of every four kids in the U.S. This statistic is at odds with the overwhelming consensus among Americans of the importance of strong families. A January 2022 Rasmussen poll found that 84% “believe a strong family is foundational to a strong America and that parents should bear the primary responsibility for raising children.” Only 11% said that raising children is a “community responsibility,” as suggested by President Joe Biden a few weeks ago.

Regarding educational outcomes, the study found that children with an engaged father in the home were “33% percent less likely to repeat a class and 43% more likely to get As in school.” It also found that children without fathers in the home were up to nine times more likely to drop out of school.

As to mental health outcomes, kids in single-parent families are “twice as likely to suffer from mental health and behavioral problems as those living with married parents” and have an almost “five times greater chance of developing mood disorders.” The report further pointed to studies showing that up to 63% of youth suicides and 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders are from fatherless homes.

Regarding criminal behavior, the report pointed to studies showing that “fatherless kids are 20 times more likely to be incarcerated,” with some data suggesting that children living without fathers “are 279% more likely to carry guns and deal drugs compared to peers living with their fathers.” The report also noted that in a study of 56 school shootings, 82% of the shooters “grew up in either an unstable family environment or grew up without both biological parents together.”

Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, contended that there are serious societal consequences when children grow up with a lack of love from engaged fathers.

“When children are abandoned by their father, their little minds often conclude they are not worth loving,” he told The Washington Stand. “But that doesn’t mean they stop looking for love. Instead, they look to people who will pretend to love them, for a price. In other cases, children turn to substances to help numb the pain. Fatherlessness creates a deficit of love and a crisis of identity. The violence, substance abuse, crime, and educational failures seem to be the result of what happens when children look for love and identity in the wrong places.”

In addition, new studies in the world of neuroscience are continuing to uncover the critical importance of household stability for young children. In a groundbreaking study published in the June edition of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers analyzing how children’s brains develop have found that “household instability before age 5 increases the risk of depression by age 21.” The findings revealed that a stable father’s presence during early childhood, among other factors, “benefit long-term development of mental health and well-being.”

The AFPI report includes numerous recommendations on how to remedy the fatherhood crisis in America.

“Local churches and faith-based organizations can be of assistance in the entire fatherhood space,” it notes. “Churches are well situated to lead in this space, as they have the personnel and mentorship potential to guide fathers to their highest potential, provide community-based resources, and mentor those without fathers.”

The report goes on to maintain that “policy officials and community leaders alike can support an all-out pro-fatherhood messaging campaign to amplify the importance of fatherhood across the Nation.” As reported by Breitbart, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is one lawmaker who has sought to pass legislation aimed at supporting families this year. “Never in my lifetime has it been harder to be a mom or a dad,” Rubio wrote in January. “Laws in our country should work to chart a new course and help parents balance child-rearing, work, and other priorities throughout day-to-day life.”

The AFPI report concludes, “To address this crisis, we must first speak openly about the problem of fatherless children. Then, we must focus on fixing it by promoting strong families, confronting cultural malaise, and sharing the joys of fatherhood. It is a tall task but a worthwhile one.”

AUTHOR