Richard Kane: Change culture to change poverty

Regarding the March 16 column “The prescience of Moynihan”: George Will today and Patrick Moynihan years ago are correct in identifying the major source of poverty.

As Will pointed out using the statistics that Moynihan elucidated, it is not economics necessarily that leads to poverty but rather culture. The culture of having children out of wedlock and raising these children in a one-parent family is the most important factor leading to poverty and undermining future success of the child.

It is not to say that a child from a one-parent family can’t grow up and succeed, but it is to say that statistically the one-parent child is more likely to continue in poverty.

The child who is raised by a parent who does not have the support of a second parent often has no role model for work, self-discipline and educational success. These children go to school unprepared for discipline, the value of education and understanding self-control leading to the problems we see in schools today.

No amount of money, social welfare, change in minimal wage or jobs will correct poverty without the needed cultural change.

It is time for leaders, black and white, to stop blaming the system and to look within to a culture that is self-destructive and self-perpetuating.

This story was originally published April 5, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Richard Kane: Change culture to change poverty."