For too long, Republicans and Democrats have paid lip service to the family, but offered little in the way of concrete family policies to shore up the eroding foundations of American family life in the United States. Senator Mike Lee’s announcement today that he is seeking to boost the child tax credit in a big way suggests that family policy may be returning to the public agenda.
It’s about time. Over the last two decades, a marriage divide has opened up between college-educated Americans and everyone else. When it comes to marriage, the most educated and affluent Americans are doing well enough. The vast majority of them are or will be (happily) married, remain married, and have their children in wedlock; but the same cannot be said for their fellow citizens with less education and income. Figure 1, which breaks down trends in nonmarital childbearing by education, shows that nonmarital childbearing has grown markedly more common among American women without college degrees, even as it remains relatively rare among college-educated women. In fact, less than 10 percent of births to college-educated women take place outside of marriage, compared to more than 50 percent of births to less-educated women.
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