Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Indiana’s Governor has been emphasizing the importance of strong families, and promising that measures taken by his administration will be “family friendly.” (Well, to be accurate, they’ll be friendly for heterosexual families…)
Family is a key indicator of success and we’re looking for ways that we can encourage more young people to get married, to stay married, to wait to have children until they’re married is very important,” he said.
Very nice. Unfortunately, the Governor’s cart is in front of his horse.
There is a raft of research showing that people who enjoy financial security are more likely to stay married. There’s a reason for the statistic the Governor shared, to the effect that upper-income folks and college graduates are more likely to have stable marriages–people who aren’t sweating the rent are more likely to stay married.
The Governor also said that his administration has been putting “the interests of strong families at the very center of our policies on development.”
Sorry, but without policies that help the working poor make ends meet, that’s just blowing smoke.
A living wage is what enables and facilitates stable marriages. It isn’t the other way around.
Comments