[US] Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing

June 28, 2008 by Walter Schneider.

After more than 40 years of devising and implementing largely feminist social policies that deliberately aimed at systematically deconstructing the institution of the natural and traditional nuclear family in the US and in other developed nations, it would seem that a report that identifies the dimensions of the economic costs of escalating family fragmentation (in the order of several trillion dollars in the US) would attract major media attention.  However, it did not do that.

The enormous costs of more than four decades of extremely expensive social engineering with far more expensive social and economic consequences that are destroying the leading nation and many others on Earth received virtually no attention in the main-stream media.  It boggles the mind that families headed by married parents, one of each sex, have become politically incorrect to such an extent that discussing their strengthening is now an unmentionable taboo in the media.

A 2008 06 28 Internet search using news.google.com produced only four instances (at Kansas City Star, CNSnews.com, Tucson Citizen and Human Events) of articles that addressed or discussed the press release quoted below.  It goes without saying that the report identifying the details of the economic costs of family fragmentation must have been read by very few journalists.  That indicates virtually absolute censorship by a totalitarian ideology that has almost without exception all of the media in its thrall.

Institute for American Values	Georgia Family Council
Institute for Marriage and Public Policy	Families Northwest

April 15, 2008
Source: http://www.americanvalues.org/coff/pressrelease.pdf

Contact: Sheila Weber, Director of Communications
sheila@americanvalues.org; 646-322-6853

Marriage Breakdown Costs Taxpayers at Least $112 Billion a Year

First-Time Research Reveals Staggering Annual Taxpayer Costs for Divorce and Unwed Childbearing

WASH. D.C. In first-ever research, a new report quantifies a minimum $112 billion annual taxpayer cost from high rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing. It identifies national, state and local costs which account for more than $1 trillion in the last decade. This landmark scholarly study, entitled “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States,” was released on April 15^th at the National Press Club by four renowned policy and research groups—Institute for American Values, Georgia Family Council, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and Families Northwest.

“This study documents for the first time, that divorce and unwed childbearing—besides being bad for children—are also costing taxpayers a ton of money,” said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values. “Even a small improvement in the health of marriage in America would result in enormous savings to taxpayers,” he continued. “For example, a 1 percent reduction in rates of family fragmentation would save taxpayers $1.1 billion.”

“These costs are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation,” said principal investigator Ben Scafidi, Ph.D., economics professor at Georgia College & State University.

“Prior research shows that marriage lifts single mothers out of poverty and therefore reduces the need for costly social benefits,” said Scafidi. “This new report shows that public concern about the decline of marriage need not be based only on ‘moral’ concerns, but that reducing high taxpayer costs of family fragmentation is a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators, as well as community reformers and faith communities.”

“This report now provides the basis for a national consensus that strengthening marriage is a legitimate policy concern,” said Blankenhorn. “The report’s numbers represent an extremely cautious estimate, a lower-bound figure, and have been vetted by a group of distinguished scholars and economists who have attached their names as advisors to this report.”

“These numbers represent real people and real suffering,” said Randy Hicks, president of Georgia Family Council. “Both economic and human costs make family fragmentation a legitimate public concern. Historically, Americans have resisted the impulse to surrender to negative and hurtful trends. We fight problems like racism, poverty and domestic violence because we understand that the stakes are high. And while we’ll never eliminate divorce and unwed childbearing entirely, we can certainly be doing more to help marriages and families succeed.”

########

Sheila Weber, Director of Communications, Institute for American Values, sheila@americanvalues.org, cell: (646) 322-6853

Institute for American Values, 1841 Broadway, Suite 211, New York, NY 10023, Tel: (212) 246-3942, Fax: (212) 541-6665

www.americanvalues.org  www.georgiafamily.org  www.imapp.org  www.familiesnorthwest.org

The press release by itself won’t do anyone much good who wishes to inform himself on what the details are of the consequences of more than four decades of deliberate design and implementation of policies to bring about systematic family deconstruction.

Follow this link to see an index of the documents that you need to see: The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All Fifty States.

The study report stresses time and again that the economic costs of $112 billion per year to US taxpayers are based on extremely cautious estimates and mentions a good number of factors that indicate that the real costs are quite likely much higher.

One of the aspects of the cost estimate is the cost of criminality of children of single parents (78.5% of whom are single mothers).  It is interesting to note that the costs of the criminality of boys and single men were calculated, but that the costs of the criminality of girls and single women were completely omitted from the calculations.  The inclusion of those costs alone would result in a far higher estimate of the real costs to taxpayers.

Posted in Censorship, Divorce, Men and Women Work, Media Bias, Social-Destruction Enterprise, Health, Men's Issues, Propaganda Exposed, Feminism, Feminist Jurisprudence, Family, The New World Order | Print | 1 Comment »