What's happening to the American family and why it matters

What an intact family has to do

 with 

the American dream, in six charts

by W. Bradford Wilcox & 

Robert I. Lerman

The standard portrayals of economic life for ordinary Americans and their families paint a bleak picture of stagnancy, rising economic inequality, joblessness, and low levels of economic mobility. From President Barack Obama’s speech last year at the Center for American Progress to Fed chairman Janet Yellen’s addressthis month in Boston, we’re getting the picture that the American Dream looks to be in bad shape. These portrayals contain an important germ of truth — today’s economy isn’t doing ordinary Americans many favors — but what is largely missing from the public conversation about economics in America is an honest discussion of the family factor in all of this.

That’s unfortunate, because one reason — though, to be sure, not the only reason — that the American economic landscape looks bleaker today is that American families are not as strong and stable as they could be. Indeed, in a new report released this week from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies, we find that about one-third of recent increases in family-income inequality and male joblessness, and a significant share of median family-income stagnation, can be linked to the declining share of Americans who are getting and staying married.

Below are six charts that show what’s happening to the American family and why it matters for the health of the American Dream.

• One: Fewer families are headed by married parents. ...
• Two: Children raised in intact families are less likely to fall afoul of detours on the road to the American Dream. ...
• Three: Children raised in intact families are more likely to acquire the human capital they need to live the American Dream. ...
•  Four: Young men and women raised in intact families work more hours. ..
• Five: Young men raised in intact families make more money. ...
• Six: Young women raised in intact families make more money. ...

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Read more: www.aei.org