Author of the new book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, is sharing her book’s findings and offering stark warnings to Americans. “We have mounds of evidence and data and objective studies showing that kids who grow up with the benefit of two parents in their home, their homes are characterized by higher levels of resources,” author Melissa Kearney told “America’s Newsroom.” She told Fox News that the problem was more than moral. “This is something as an economic matter, not as a value-laden or moral proposition we should all be really concerned about,” she said. It’s a problem that, if solved, could lessen the economic gap between races in America. “This is why, from an inequality perspective, this matters so much, because the class and racial gaps in kids’ access really to having a stable, highly resourced two-parent home are driving a lot of these class and racial gaps in society. If we don’t break this, we should not be surprised that we’re sort of cementing advantage and disadvantage across race and class groups in America,” she warned. 64 percent of black children were being raised in single-parent households in the United States, primarily with single mothers, the highest number in any ethnic group. American Indian was second with 52 percent, followed by Hispanic/ Latino with 42 percent. That number was 24 percent for those who are non-Hispanic white. Black, Hispanic, and American Indian families have continued to rank lower in economic success than their white counterparts.

Kearney has suggested a number of economic policies to encourage two-parent households, including increasing skills for low-skilled men to make them more appealing as marriage partners. The Institute for Family Studies (IFS), however, doubted focusing on just economic changes. “One suspects Kearney emphasizes a spending-forward approach because it is the approach her target audience is willing to swallow,” IFS said of her book. “Fine, it makes sense, as her readers might say, to give parents a little more cash, train low-skilled men, and implement criminal justice reform—all things they favor anyway. But the choice to get married, and to remain in a stable, two-parent relationship is not a purely economic one. It is, in fact, primarily a matter of people’s individual normative judgements, insofar as any couple, rich or poor, can choose to stay together when it is good for their children.” Speaking to the Brookings Institute, Kearney acknowledged that both economic supports and family structure were important. “I think this should not be an either/or. We can recognize that the absence of a second parent, often a dad from the household, puts a lot of burden on the single moms who are doing this by themselves, and it disadvantages kids. At the same time, [we can say] that we need a stronger safety net to help families who are under-resourced in an economic way.”