Ask Dr. E: If you could fix one thing in our country, what would be at the top of your list?

OPINION:

Dear Dr. E: What do you think is the biggest threat facing America at present? Is it illegal immigration? The threat of terrorism? The economy? Our broken educational system? Or would you say it is something else? If you could fix one thing in our country right now, what would be at the top of your list? — BABY BOOMER FROM WEST VIRGINIA  

Dear Boomer: While all the issues you cite are pressing, the one you don’t mention is the linchpin to all others. The single most critical issue facing America right now is the collapse of the nuclear family. Fix the family, and nearly everything else will fall into place. 

According to the Pew Research Center, the American Community Survey, and the Decennial Census data, less than half of the children in the United States live at home with mom and dad. Only 46% of children under the age of 18 live in a household with two married heterosexual parents who are in their first marriage. In 1960, that number was 73%. The trend is far, far worse in the African American population.

Many of our socioeconomic issues are directly linked to the health of the family. If the family structure fails in any civilization, the number of married couples decreases, economic mobility decreases, median family income decreases, child poverty increases, racial tension increases, and educational tensions increase. The success and stability of the economy is directly related to the health of the family structure. You cannot have one without the other. Eric Cochling of the Georgia Center for Opportunity says it well: “To reinvigorate opportunity in America, we must start by restoring the health and vitality of the American family. Nothing less will do.” If the family falls, so does the economy.

Many, if not nearly all, of our state and federal programs fail because they do not focus on the vitality of the traditional family. The restoration of the married, heteronormative, two-parent family must be revived as the cornerstone of American life for our country to prosper. It is no coincidence that the word economy originates from the Greek “oikos,” which means household.

Research in the social sciences and the corresponding demographic and tax data confirm that intact traditional families are the best predictor of economic and cultural health. Families where children benefit from the stability of a married mother and father work more. They earn more. They save more. They are more likely to qualify for a mortgage. They pay more in taxes. They are more likely to start and invest in a new business enterprise. They give more to charity. They volunteer more. They even vote more. And they raise, on average, more children. And their children are more likely to attend and graduate from college, marry, and, like their parents, raise productive children.

Our federal welfare expenses have grown exponentially because the number of healthy families has decreased. According to the Heritage Foundation, federal and state assistance programs cost American taxpayers nearly $1 trillion per year. This is enough to award every three-person household in America living under the poverty level $50,000 annually. Over a 10-year period, America’s welfare spending will exceed $10 trillion, and nearly every dime of this will be spent to compensate for the disadvantages children face as the result of being raised in a broken home and living outside the protective bonds of traditional marriage.

Even the looming Social Security and Medicare deficits are related to the disintegration of the nuclear family. Thanks to abortion and federal “family planning,” birth rates have plummeted, and we, therefore, have fewer taxpayers to share the economic load. Even the Social Security actuarial tables concede this, stating that projected deficits are caused “not because we are living longer, but because [average] birthrates dropped from three to two children per woman.”

Gary Becker, Nobel-prize-winning economist and economic expert on the family, says, “No discussion of human capital [and economic productivity] can omit the influence of families on the knowledge, skills, values, and habits of their children. Parents have a large influence on the education, marital stability, and many other dimensions of their children’s lives.”

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith said, “The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase in the number of its inhabitants,” which he linked to “a numerous family of children.” We don’t need a bigger government to solve our problems; we need public policies that allow children to grow up in healthy, flourishing families. If we really want to promote prosperity in America, we should stop growing the federal government and put our trust in the first and most basic unit of self-government—the family.

If you are seeking guidance in today’s changing world, Higher Ground is there for you. Everett Piper, a Ph.D. and a former university president and radio host, takes your questions in his weekly ’Ask Dr. E’ column. If you have moral or ethical questions for which you’d like an answer, please email askeverett@washingtontimes.com and he may include it in a future column.