Thread by @GreenKing1300

Black folks and poverty

At one point in this nation, black ppl were the model of upward mobility n strong family values. An era rarely talked about cause it shows our true potential, WITHOUT gov assistance.

Somewhere after the Black Wall Street destruction and before CRACK.

From 1940-1960 the blk community cut our poverty rates in HALF.

In this same era, within jobs in the skilled trades, black income DOUBLED that of what our white counterparts were making. Doubled.

Home ownership and college enrollment were sky rocketing.

Plenty were still in poverty, but we began to own the middle class and were well on our way to the next level.

The strong family was the structure. Pops was a provider, lover, n provided the discipline.

Black women were the backbone, raising the next successful generation.

In the 1960s, the out of wedlock birthrate for blacks was only 24%.

In this era the black woman was more likely to be married than white women.

Black man and black woman strong 🤜🏽🙌🏽

So what happened?

1964 happened. The war on poverty.

President Lyndon Johnson gave a speech at Howard University highlighting the need to end black poverty n that it could not be done on our own.

Thus the welfare state was born.

The $ spent on public housing rapidly rose by more than 4x the rate. More than 10x for food stamps.

By 1974, 16% of Americas Gross National Product was spent on social welfare programs, compared to only 8% in 1960. Massive jump.

The actual amount of ppl in that timeframe receiving public assistance more than doubled.

The effects on the black community?

Catastrophic.

Annually increasing provisions incentivizing the avoidance of forming 2 parent households and marriage.

A mother could lose up to 20% of her benefits if she got married.

Housing, food stamps, medicaid, day care, TANF.

This was particularly worse for poor neighborhoods. Previously, marrying a low income man and growing with him was good for the community. Now? Marry him and lose thousands in benefits? No way.

Hard work became the most heavily taxed way to live.

Those birth out of wedlock rates?
Blk folks jumped from a slim 24% to more than 50% by 1976. Half the youth born with no pops.

Today that number has risen past 70%.

The Heritage Foundation says research shows a 1 parent household increases the frequency of child poverty by 700%

Kids from single parent households are also more prone to drug use, poor school performance, incarceration etc.

Rapists, adolescent murderers, and long term prison inmates have rates between 60-75% rates of coming from fatherless homes.

Girls from single mothers are twice as likely to give birth out of wedlock.
Which spreads the cycle faster and faster.

They subsidized unwed pregnancies and changed welfare from emergency rescue to a way of life.

We absolutely must break and reverse these cycles.

Absolutely nothing gets better until we fix our families.

Men can no longer afford to spend years being controlled by sexual urges. Learn finance, make money, project healthy masculinity, teach the youth.

Black man and black woman strong 🙏🏽