The historic welfare reform bill of 1996 had, at its core, one fundamental
principle: Personal responsibility should accompany government-provided
opportunity. Over the last five years, we have seen the results as Americans
were empowered to get jobs, to collect a paycheck, and to provide for
their families. Millions of people who used to be dependent on welfare
are now self-sufficient.
But the "first generation" of welfare reform demanded responsibility
only of custodial parents, mostly single mothers. While women with children
were required to leave the welfare rolls within five years and become
self-sufficient, parents who were non-custodial -- mostly men -- were left
out of the equation.
Now, five years later, as we embark on the next generation of welfare
reform, it's time we demand that men live up to their responsibilities
too. It's not right for a man to bring a child into the world and just
walk away, leaving mothers and taxpayers to pick up the bill.
The reforms of 1996 were successful: Welfare caseloads have declined
from just over 5 million in 1994 to just over 2 million in 2001. Today,
73 percent of single mothers are working, up from just 57 percent nine
years ago. Most important, the poverty rate among American children has
declined by a third.
However, hidden within those numbers is a telling statistic about who
is really hurt when fathers do not take responsibility for their children.
The poverty rate for children living in married families is about 8 percent;
in families headed by a single mother it is roughly 40 percent.
As the successes of welfare reform become clear and the number of single
mothers finding self-sufficiency continues to rise, so too does the number
of American children who go to bed each night without a father in the
house. Today, 17 million children -- more than three times as many as 40
years ago -- live in fatherless homes The absence of fathers has substantial
consequences for our broader society as well as for the children. Research
indicates that if you are a child living without your father, you are
five times more likely to live in poverty, twice as likely to commit a
violent crime, twice as likely to be involved with drugs or alcohol, twice
as likely to drop out of school, and much more likely to become pregnant
as a teenager -- and the list goes on and on.
Mothers -- especially single mothers -- have been heroic in their efforts
to raise our nation's children, but they should not be expected to shoulder
the burden alone. At the time of welfare reform in 1996, few were asking
where the fathers of these children were and what contributions they should
be expected to make to help move their families off of welfare.
Welfare in America has traditionally been focused on providing assistance
to needy children and promoting the self-sufficiency of their parents.
In 1996, two new goals were added to the program: reducing the incidence
of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and promoting the formation and maintenance
of two-parent families.
To achieve each of these goals, we will have to make specific demands
of American men: First, act responsibly and do not bring children into
the world until you are prepared to support them both emotionally and
financially; and second, if you do have a child, do all you can to meet
the very serious obligations of fatherhood.
Welfare reform is the right place to demand male responsibility and face
the challenges of fatherlessness. I have coauthored bipartisan legislation
with Republican Sen. Pete Domenici that highlights the importance of families
and marriage to child development and aims to promote responsible fatherhood
through public awareness, community involvement, and the removal of federal
barriers to active fatherhood. We reach out to try and persuade men to
be responsible in the first place and to wait until they're prepared to
assume the awesome responsibilities of bringing a child into the world
-- and when they do so, to do right by that child.
While states currently have the flexibility to provide services to fathers,
there are no incentives in place to encourage them to do so and no explicit
direction on how to provide men with the tools they need to act more responsibly.
The only form of paternal involvement directly mandated by current law
is to provide child support. As a result, states have spent only one-half
of 1 percent of their federal welfare dollars on services that directly
incorporate noncustodial parents.
Our approach is focused on helping children, but it has the added benefit
of being in the best interest of taxpayers as well. In Washington, we
vote on budgets that allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to deal
with the symptoms of what really is a deeper problem. If we're going to
save taxpayer money and make progress in combating juvenile violence,
if we're going to make progress against drug and alcohol addiction, if
we're going to make progress in improving education and employment opportunities
across this country, we need to make progress first in strengthening families
and helping them to raise our children.
If we demand responsibility from men, it will be good for our children,
helpful to mothers, beneficial for taxpayers, and an added strength to
our society. And while there is no legislation that we can enact into
law that will mandate responsibility or create strong families by itself,
we owe it to our children to try by making sure that the next generation
of welfare reform demands responsibility from men.
