Out-of-Wedlock Births an Issue to Be Addressed

Preliminary numbers are in for the latest round of American birth statistics, and among the headline-grabbing news is that 39.7 percent of births in 2007 were to unmarried mothers. In North Carolina, that number was 41.2 percent, up about 1 percent from the year before.

The bad news doesn’t stop there. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest report, released March 18, shows that the number of out-of-wedlock births is increasing at an alarming rate. According to the report, the number of such births increased by 26 percent since 2002. Among women 20 to 24, 58 percent of births were to unmarried mothers.

Despite the stark numbers from the CDC, many officials don’t see the onslaught of overwhelmingly low-income constituents being added to their rolls each day as their most urgent problem.

“We don’t have anything meaningful to say about children born out of wedlock,” said Tabitha Carnes, public information specialist for the Department of Social Services in Mecklenburg.

Mecklenburg County reflects the statewide trend, with about the same percentage of out-of-wedlock births as the state as a whole. But even as the economy continues to dominate the news, county officials are preoccupied with other issues, including two major scandals at the Department of Social Services.

One involves two agency employees who are accused of stealing $110,000 meant for Christmas presents for foster care children from the Youth and Family Services Giving Tree program. In another, allegations of cronyism have been lobbed at Charlotte city councilman Anthony Foxx, who is also running for mayor in the fall race. Foxx’s wife was picked for a high-paying DSS job in July during a hiring freeze.

Amid all the excitement involving the growing scandals, the news of rising out-of-wedlock birthrates barely registers on the radar screen as citizens face increasing financial problems.

“People are more vulnerable now because of the economy,” Carnes said. “We’re providing services to help those people meet their basic needs to sustain their well being.”
The very people the DSS is designed to serve are often those whose populations are most affected by the births-out-of-wedlock trend, however. According to a Heritage Foundation report released March 19: “It is well documented that compared with children born to married couples, those born outside of marriage score lower on tests, have increased chances for committing a crime, have higher chances of living in poverty, experience more emotional and behavioral problems, are more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, and have higher chances of becoming pregnant as teens.”

The increase in single motherhood will perhaps have its greatest effect on Medicaid, explained Joseph Coletti, a fiscal and health care policy analyst at the John Locke Foundation.

“Medicaid covers a lot of births, especially births for people of low income, and out-of-wedlock births are more tied to low income,” he said, adding that low-income women tend to have more birth complications due to lack of prenatal care.

“That’s going to be a small percentage usually, but it can lead to other things,” he said.

Single mothers also are more likely to be enrolled in other social programs, such as SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which helps children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid. Programs, such as Smart Start, child care subsidies, the More at Four pre-kindergarten program, and general welfare support for families, are also likely to see their enrollment grow.

For at least one Mecklenburg County official, Commissioner Bill James, the growing number of out-of-wedlock births has him wondering why the traditional nuclear American family is becoming a thing of the past.

Much has been made of single parenthood in recent years. Perhaps most visible at the moment is Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Bristol gave birth to a son in late December and has since scrapped plans to marry the father, her high school sweetheart Levi Johnston.

Indeed, despite declining by 45 percent between 1991 to 2005, the number of births among 15- to 17-year-olds has increased 4 percent from 2005 to 2007. The increase among 18- to 19-year-olds was 6 percent.

But as the recent numbers show, teenagers are not solely responsible for these increases. It’s the 20-somethings who are increasingly seeing single parenthood in a positive light.

Additionally, births to black and Hispanic single mothers still make up the largest portion of the out-of-wedlock births. In 2007, according to the latest CDC report, 71.6 percent of African-American babies were born to single mothers.

In Mecklenburg County, that number hovers at about 50 percent, with 31.6 percent of single mothers being of Hispanic heritage. Still, the number of white single mothers continues to grow, reaching 15.3 percent this year. Births to single Asian mothers remain relatively low.

James also is concerned that local, state, and national governments are aiding in the breakdown of the family.
“If you give someone money every time they engage in an out-of-wedlock birth, you can’t then claim you are trying to stop it or moan about it when it rises,” James explained. “The cycle repeats because DSS is primarily interested in the handing out of money — not protecting children.”

He blames timid politicians for not addressing the issue more aggressively.

“We know the problem but can’t bear to discuss the solution because it would anger those Democrat constituents,” he said of low-income single mothers and African-Americans, who typically vote Democratic. “Republicans and conservative Democrats ignore the issue because it is just easier to talk about lowering taxes than to get called names.”

Coletti sees it less in terms of partisan politics and more in terms of achievable changes in the current political and economic climate. He asks two questions: Does getting rid of these programs help encourage marriage and families living together? And if you have more marriages, does that affect the spending in these programs?

“That first one is very clear: The government saves money,” he said. As far as the second, he explained, “it’s harder to argue that you could have [more marriage and fewer out-of-wedlock births] without changing the structure of the programs.”

He recommends tax credits and child-care deductibles to encourage the removal of barriers for single mothers to move off of public assistance. Right now, he explained, Medicaid and welfare tend still to punish people for taking jobs to earn extra money by removing their benefits before they can become financially stable.

If the number of single mothers were to decrease, programs such as welfare and Smart Start and SCHIP would generally see a decrease, statistics show.

But the nature of these programs — dealing with some of society’s most vulnerable people, including children — means that these policy changes are among the most difficult to make.

Right now, scaling back social programs or even addressing the rising number of single mothers in North Carolina is not gaining much momentum as an important issue.

Commissioner James placed the matter on the Strategic Planning Conference agenda in January 2005, he said, only to be told to “let the county manager deal with it.”

“Are folks concerned? Sure,” he said. “That is why they move to the suburbs, put their kids in private schools, try to avoid going into the Center City of Charlotte, and have brick walls and gates built around their neighborhoods.”

Coletti thinks that if it weren’t for so many serious issues facing politicians and policy makers right now, the issue of out-of-wedlock births might get more attention.

“There are so many things happening that are shorter-term emergencies,” he said, adding, “If I didn’t think we could repeal these programs, I wouldn’t be here.”

Colleen Calvani is a contributor to Carolina Journal.