College-educated adults have seen their earnings rise over recent decades, and they have continued to get married at relatively high rates, typically to one another.
One-parent homes generally do not have the same income as two-parent homes, even when we compare the homes of mothers of the same age, education level, race and state of residence.
What are the odds that the government will start providing one-parent families with, say, benefits equal to the median earnings of an adult with a high school degree, which comes to around $44,000 a year?
As long as that’s the case, income gaps between one- and two-parent homes will be substantial, and income matters a lot for kids’ prospects and futures.
But again, it is highly unlikely that government or community programs could ever provide children from one-parent homes with a comparable amount of the supervision, nurturing, guidance or help that children from healthy two-parent homes receive.
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