Dear Champions for Marriage, Fatherhood and Children,

My name is Joneen Mackenzie. I am the president and founder of the Center for Relationship Education. More importantly I serve on the NARME (National Association of Relationship and Marriage Education) Board of Directors. Just this morning I read the data outlining marriage is down 11% since the late 60’s and continuing to trend downward.  Non-marital childbearing is at 40% and rising. Divorce rates are way too high.  Children do better in a healthy two-parent bio mom and dad or adoptive married family structure (See attached study). Poverty is on the rise.

NARME is a voice to restore this nation once again toward healthy relationship development, success sequencing, poverty prevention, marriage enhancement, family strengthening, and responsible fatherhood.

As the membership chair of NARME I am committed to increase our voice and national footprint by asking all of you to become members at the highest level possible. Please check out the www.NARME.org   website for the different levels of membership.

We need to be a powerful advocacy and informational organization to promote and engage the language of research and data on the benefits of marriage and family to the entire country including  policy makers and influencers.

The next generation of young people who are afraid of marriage (and they have every right to be) need to know that cohabitation is not without risk or heartbreak. They need to know that there are strategies, skills and secrets to healthy relationship development, partner selection and marriage enhancement. They need to know that lifetime commitment is possible and pleasurable. The need to know the benefits of marriage and committed love.

Please help restore this nation by restoring marriage and the family unit.

Either renew your NARME Membership, upgrade to the next level of membership or become a member for the first time. I guarantee you will be glad you did.

NARME is excited to be hosting monthly webinars that are sure to be fascinating.

TIME SENSITIVE

The next national webinar will be held on  Wednesday Nov 19, 2014 featuring Dr. Galena Rhoades Ph.D, research professor at the University of Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies. She will be talking about the amazing study entitled, What Happens in Vegas, Doesn’t Always Stay in Vegas. Please check the www.NARME.org website for the times in your location.

Also this summer NARME  is hosting not a conference but a national event entitled:

RESTORING A NATION, NARME’s Family Reunion and Leadership Summit … Leading the way for healthy relationship development, family formation, poverty prevention, and child well-being.

The organizers are continuing to shore up the details at the hotel but most likely this event will be in Atlanta, Georgia on June 15, 16 and 17.  Please mark your calendars and save the date.

I am committed to contact each and every one of you champions. In the next couple of weeks I will be calling you and introducing myself to you to hear your heart about this issue and to hear what you are up to as you work tirelessly and relentlessly for this issue.

Thank you all for your service and sacrifice.

The next generation of children will be indebted to you as you build their family legacy which is defined by commitment, kindness , love, sacrifice, economic development and health.

Please be patient with me as I know some of you have received this e mail twice.

With much respect,

Joneen Mackenzie

Joneen Mackenzie RN, BSN, CPS II

The Center For Relationship Education

President / Founder

joneen@myrelationshipcenter.org

www.myrelationshipcenter.org 

www.marry-well.org 

www.datenightdenver.com   

8101 E. Belleview Avenue

Suite D-2

Denver, CO 80237

720.488.8888 ext 201

Cell: 303.888.1895

Fax:720.214.2001

Reducing poverty by strengthening families!

When people fail to form lifetime committed partnerships /stable marriages, the first result is a vast expansion of government attempts  to cope with the terrible social needs that result.  There is scarcely a dollar that the state and federal government spends on social programs that is not driven, in large part, by non-marital childbearing, family fragmentation:  crime, poverty, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school failure, mental and physical health problems.

Ethics & Religion

9311 Harrington Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

Mike@MarriageSavers.org

301 469-5870

October 30, 2014

Column #1,731

Impact of Marriage on Income

By Mike McManus

            There has been a retreat of marriage in America.  In 1980 78% of families were headed by married parents – but only 66% in 2012.

            “The growth in median income of families with children would be 44% higher if the United States enjoyed 1980 levels of married parenthood today,” reports an important new study, “For Richer, For Poorer: How Family Structures Economic Success in America.”

            Here is the reason average income in America has declined. Fewer are marrying.

            However, there is important good news for couples who do marry: “Men and women who are currently married and were raised by an intact family enjoy an annual `family premium’ in their household income that exceeds that of their unmarried peers raised in non-intact families by at least $42,000,” said the report written by W. Bradford Wilcox and Robert Lerman.

            To put that more simply: couples who marry will earn $42,000 more than those who cohabit or remain single.

            Good news for parents of young adults and pastors!

            What’s more, the economic advantages of being married “apply as much to blacks and Hispanics as they do to whites.”  For example, average men who marry enjoy a $15.900 “marriage premium,” while blacks enjoy at least a $12,500 premium and men with only a high school degree or less get a $17,000 income boost compared to their single peers.

            Unfortunately, however, most who marry are the well-educated with higher incomes.  Those with less education and income are the least likely to marry.

            Therefore, the decline of marriage accounts for as much as 41% of the growth in family income inequality from 1976 to 2000.  Single parenthood has soared in recent years. Why?

Men without college degrees have experienced a decline in real income and relative to women’s wages. These men have become “less marriageable.”  That has made marriage less attractive to women.  Unmarried mothers can not only earn good wages, but get government subsidies such as Medicaid and food stamps.

The percentage of teenagers living with married parents fell from three-quarters in the late 1970s to slightly more than half in 1997. Teens without both parents are more apt to get pregnant or become delinquent. 

Marriage fosters maturity in men, self-control and success.  As George Akerlof, author of “Men Without Children,” put it memorably, “Men settle down when they get married.  If they fail to get married they fail to settle down.”

Married men work 441 more hours per year than their single peers.  That’s one reason they earn more.  For those aged 44-46 their family income is $44,350 more than unmarried men.

Furthermore, “Marriage gains in economic outcomes are higher for the less educated and for African Americans,” the report asserted.

Even those who did not grow up with married parents, but who marry “do about as well or almost as well as their peers who enjoyed a stable family upbringing.”

However, growing up with both parents increases one’s odds of becoming highly educated, “which in turn leads to higher odds of being married. Both the added education and marriage results in higher income levels.”

Conversely, the retreat from marriage by less educated, lower income Americans is the primary reason ordinary American families have experienced declining economic fortunes.

What can be done to rebuild marriage in America? 

Brad Wilcox, who directs the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute – offer these suggestions:

First, halt federal and state financial penalties of marriage.  Unmarried women with children have government subsidies equal to a spouse working full-time at $11 an hour.  But if a cohabiting couple marries, she loses those benefits. To encourage marriage, benefits might not be cut for three years.

Second, they propose expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for men without children to $1,000 to increase their incentive to work. And the child tax credit “should be expanded from $1,000 to $3,000.”

Third, they argue that government devotes disproportionate subsidies for college that are attended by only 35% of young adults. Why not expand vocational education and apprenticeships to give other young people skills, confidence and opportunity?

Finally, there needs to be a national campaign to promote the “success sequence,” to finish education, get a job, get married and then have children, in that order. Such a campaign could be modeled on the campaign to prevent teen pregnancy that cut teen births by 50%.  Similar campaigns to reduce drunk driving and smoking were also successful.

“For Richer, for Poorer” is packed with fresh analysis and suggestions.

Copyright © 2014 Michael J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

****************************************

Mike McManus is President of Marriage Savers

and a syndicated columnist, writing Ethics & Religion weekly

mike@marriagesavers.org

9311 Harrington Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

301-978-7108