The four-step approach to escaping poverty
The relationship between family formation and prosperity is accepted across the political spectrum.
The success sequence to escaping poverty starts with education. Completing high school, securing stable employment, getting married and waiting until they’re age 21 to have children was first refined by Brookings Institution researchers.
Only 2% of Americans who follow the success sequence are in poverty, compared to 11.5% of Americans. Family formation, the third and fourth steps on the success sequence, are extremely important because family stability and structure have profound impacts on economic and social mobility.
In her 2023 book “The Two-Parent Privilege,” Brookings Institution economist Melissa S. Kearney makes the case that two-parent households offer children advantages and opportunities that other kinds of family formation rarely provide.
Kearney emphasizes the growing gulf in outcomes between children who grow up in two-parent households and those who do not.
“We cannot deny this data,” she says about her book, “We cannot deny that one versus two-parent households have very different outcomes… If we allow this divergence and family structure to perpetuate without trying to disrupt it, we’re just going to watch advantage and disadvantage perpetuate across the generations.”
In Chicago, only 6% of married-couple families had an income below poverty level in the past twelve months compared to 27% of single-mother families. Marriage rates among upper-income adults remain constant while rates for lower income families are dropping and disparities in economic opportunity and income inequality have widened.
Kearney concludes households with two married parents provide measurable economic advantages to children over those that do not. This advantage is cyclical, as children raised in two-parent households — thanks to their greater access to education and other resources — outperform their counterparts in one-parent households before going on to secure stable employment and form two-parent households of their own.
Illinois ranked 43rd in wage growth from December 2022 to December 2023 at 1.6%. According to Kearney’s theory, that could make it harder for Illinois men to secure stable employment and make a decent, steady income.
It also might render Illinois men less “marriageable” and exacerbates the state’s growing problem of single-parent households. Because of the close relationship between education, employment, income and family, that makes it harder for Illinoisans to climb out of poverty.
By taking steps to increase employment such as eliminating barriers to work like excessive occupational licensing requirements and incentivizing marriage such as ending the federal marriage penalty, lawmakers can help more Illinoisans follow the success sequence to prosperity.