Clawing Back the American Dream

Clifton Roscoe on single-parent families

We’re developing a theme here at the newsletter. How can those of us with fairly specific concerns about the path of the country focus some of the scattershot energy the Trump administration is throwing off and use it to do tangible good? A couple weeks ago, I proposed a pitch for “A MAGA Plan for Black Success.” Clifton Roscoe has started working on how such a plan could be appealing to both Republicans and Democrats, and what it would entail.

His first suggestion settles on a big, juicy problem. The US has a higher rate of single-parent households than any other country on Earth. But, on average, kids are better off being raised in two-parent households rather than single-parent households. Not everyone agrees with that last sentence, but Clifton makes a compelling case that everyone should. I leave it to him to lay out the facts and figures.

---

This post is free and available to the public. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.

---

Glenn’s post “A MAGA Plan for Black Success” got me thinking about all the Americans who think the American Dream is out of reach for them. For most people, achieving the American Dream involves earning at least as much as one's parents at the same age. Folks are right to be concerned. An analysis by Raj Chetty and a team of researchers found that the odds of earning more at age 30 than one's parents, adjusted for inflation, fell from more than 90% for those born in 1940 to just 50% for those born in 1980. Several factors drive these trends (e.g., globalization, automation, immigration, deindustrialization, etc.). One of them is the rise in households with children that are led by single parents.

Team Trump talks about Making America Great Again. That phrase has resonated with the public more than most political slogans and has led to the creation of a new movement. That goal can't be achieved, however, unless more than half of Americans are able to provide for their families at least as well as their parents did. If the Trump administration made a concerted effort to reduce single-parenthood across the board, it would help achieve their goal of Making America Great Again and do a lot of good for many families in the process.

Congress issued a “National Single Parent Day” declaration last year. Here's a graphic from the US Census Bureau that highlights the magnitude of the issue:

The graphic doesn't do justice to the trend. Here are the percentages of households with children under the age of 18 that were headed by single parents by decade:

1950: 7%

1960: 9%

1970: 11%

1980: 20%

1990: 24%

2000: 27%

2010: 30%

2020: 29%

2024: 30%

A lot happened during the 1970s. To paraphrase an old Earth, Wind & Fire tune from when they had female singers, "Peace and love! Peace and love!"

There are several implications associated with the single-parent households trend:

1. The majority of these households are led by people without college degrees

2. Poverty rates for these households, especially those led by single mothers, are much higher than average

3. The outcomes for children living in single-parent households are much worse than those for children living in households with married parents

America now has a higher percentage of households led by single parents than any country in the world according to Pew Research. Here's a graphic:

The headline on the graphic is misleading. The percentage of households with children led by single mothers is around 23%. The number goes up to 30% if you include families headed by single fathers. Either way, the fact that the US leads the world in the percentage of households led by single parents is worrisome, since the outcomes (e.g., lower academic achievement, behavior issues, substance abuse, lower income levels, less economic mobility, lower wealth levels, lower life expectancies, etc.) for these households, especially their children, aren't good.

Here are the racial demographics of single parent households from the Census Bureau as of 2023 (see Table FM-2):

White: 62.7%

Black: 28.3%

Hispanic: 25.1%

The white figure probably includes Hispanics, but that's not obvious from the data table description. That's the only way to make the figures work, however, so I think the real figures are:

White: 37.6%

Black: 28.3

Hispanic: 25.1%

Others: 9.0%

That's in line with a breakdown of children living with single parent, by race, as of 2022 from Kids Count:

White: 33%

Hispanic: 32%

Black: 24%

Others: 11%

We can't expect a perfect match, because the first numbers reflect percentages of households led by single parents, and the second breakdown reflects percentages of children living in single-parent households. The first numbers are for 2023 and the second numbers are for 2022. The sources use different Census Bureau data sets as well.

---

---

To make a long story short, these folks are disproportionately in the half of Americans who won't achieve the American Dream. The fading of that dream for half of millennials is an issue that crosses ideological boundaries. Lowering the single-parenthood rate would certainly be a step in the right direction. Anyone who can do that via policy initiatives would likely reap major political benefits.

There's a wide range of opinions about how to approach this issue. My guess is that the likelihood of getting something meaningful done would go up if it were “deracialized.” It ought to be easy to finesse the race issue completely by focusing on what the Trump administration can do to strengthen family structures and to boost the prospects of households led by single parents.

There's no consensus about how to address this issue. Melissa Kearney provides broad stroke policy ideas in her book:

• Work to restore and foster a norm of two-parent homes for children

• Work to improve the economic condition of men without a college level of education so they are more reliable marriage partners and fathers

• Promoting and supporting healthy co-parenting and two-parent involvement, regardless of parental marital status and living arrangements

• Scale up government and community programs that show promise in strengthening families and improving outcomes for parents and children from disadvantaged backgrounds

• Have a stronger safety net for families regardless of family structure

Here's what she says we shouldn't do:

• Accept a new reality where the two-parent household is a thing of the past for less-educated, lower-income Americans

• Bemoan the economic independence of women

• Stigmatize single mothers or encourage unhealthy marriages

• Run unsuccessful government marriage programs

• Keep government assistance programs meager under the mistaken assumption that doing so will incentivize more marriages and two-parent families

Robert Cherry wrote an essay for this newsletter back in 2023 in which he critiqued Melissa Kearney's work. He essentially agreed with her conclusion about the importance of two-parent households, but he was skeptical that the percentage of households led by single parents can be reduced significantly or quickly. He argued that we need to do something for single parents in the meantime.

Cherry focused on black families, but his ideas can be applied to single-parent households regardless of color. He argued for direct intervention in the homes of single mothers, starting with visiting nurses programs for infants and toddlers. Here's an excerpt from his essay:

Besides providing parenting skills and strategies to improve early learning, [visiting nurses] also seek to reduce toxic stresses and help mothers make effective life choices that go beyond childrearing.

In-house educators can then show mothers how to prepare their children for school, followed by school interactions to keep parents involved with their children’s education. The ongoing parent involvement is found in virtually all charter schools and is slowly entering traditional public schools, particularly in attempts to combat the growing absenteeism problem.

He also called for “stackable” certificate programs that would make men more desirable partners for the mothers of their children and more capable of providing financial support. He closes his essay by lamenting that progressives often oppose these kinds of approaches and still insist that college for all should be the goal.

There are other ideas for addressing this issue, but these policy ideas from Kearney and Cherry cover most of the debate.

I think most Americans would accept ideas from across the ideological spectrum that sound like common sense when it comes to strengthening families and family structures. That could include things like boosting the child tax credit for low-income families, making changes to the tax code that encourage marriage, etc.

I'm not hung up on labels. We can call these policy ideas that most Americans will support, especially if we avoid racial and ideological labels so that folks don't get hung up on who's “worthy” of support and who isn't. The data shows that many Americans of all stripes live in single parent households. The disadvantages associated with that transcend race and politics.

My guess is that Team Trump knows their fragile coalition needs to be strengthened if they want it to endure. Republicans who aren't part of Team Trump probably feel the same way. Democrats, by contrast, have got to win back some of the voters they lost to Trump in 2024. Both parties need to appeal to these new "swing voters" so there's an opportunity to create pro-marriage and pro-family policies that the public would support, if we can get past our toxic politics.

---