The Weekly Memo: Beating the Odds
Research shows that if someone does just three things in order, they can almost guarantee not living in poverty:
1. Finish high school.
2. Get a full-time job.
3. Get married before you have children.
As I discussed in my last One Take podcast episode, The Institute for Family Studies reports that 97 percent of millennials who accomplished those three things in that order have avoided poverty by the time they reached their prime adult years (28-34). Clearly, the simple avoidance of this sequence has had devastating impacts on many American communities.
You can watch the full discussion below:
Furthermore, fatherlessness has wreaked havoc on our younger generations:
· According to a 2023 report from the America First Policy Institute, America has the highest rate of children living in single-parent homes of any nation in the world.
· Around 80 percent of those single parent homes are led by mothers.
· More than 18 million children in America – or 1 in 4 American children – are now growing up without a father in the home.
· The Institute further notes that fatherless children are generally “more likely to suffer from psychosocial development issues, live in poverty, drop out of school, engage in school violence, abuse substances, and enter the juvenile justice system.”
ICYMI
