Social Responsibilty and the role of the state

COLTRANE · (#1 (**permalink**))

"More than 42 per cent of babies born in Britain last year were to unmarried parents. Teenage pregnancy rates are twice the European average and pregnancies among under-16s are still rising. More than a quarter of children live in a home with only one parent and the child-support system is in crisis, the majority of lone parents depend on the state for more than half their income."

COLTRANE · (#2 (**permalink**))

http://tinyurl.com/alejk
"The picture was similar in the United States 10 years ago, and the level of voter anxiety over these issues gave Bill Clinton the impetus to carry through a sweeping, cross-party programme of welfare reform. The dramatic success of those 1996 reforms, fashioned by Republicans but enacted by Democrats, could give British politicians of all parties food for thought.
In America, it had become clear that many of the problems plaguing our poorest communities flowed from the collapse of the family. Just as in Britain, the evidence was clear that, on average, children born outside marriage are at a huge statistical disadvantage. They are more likely than children born to married parents to remain in poverty, to be abused, to drop out of school, to commit crimes and to experience a host of other difficulties. Simply raising benefit payments was not solving these problems.
So the decision was made that the state should no longer guarantee income to young people who had babies outside marriage and did not work. Welfare would be time-limited. Cash benefits would cease to be an entitlement but become contingent on work or work preparation. Young adults would learn that they must achieve independence by working or by marrying someone who works - or both."
Etc- you get the drift.