Originally Posted by deacongirl
Yup. I like Harlem Children's Zone. Also Urban Promise in Camden (and other cities).
If you provide a suite of social services so that the children of unwed, uneducated single mothers are well taken care of, this may send a message to young women and men to have children that they themselves are not willing or able to care for.

Where would the money come from to expand all these programs nationwide? Many people are willing to work hard to provide for their our children but not to subsidize the irresponsibility of others. The illegitimacy rate in the U.S. is about 40%, and it should be lower. Birth rates have fallen in this recession, especially for people in their early 20s, whose job prospects are worse than those of the same cohort in 2007. People decide to have children or not based based in part on economic viability. That viability should be based on their earnings, not the taxpayer's.