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25–919 2017

S. HRG. 115–69 

WHAT WE DO TOGETHER: THE STATE OF SOCIAL 

CAPITAL IN AMERICA TODAY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 17, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee 

( 

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JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

[Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress] 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio, Chairman 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

JOHN DELANEY, Maryland 

ALMA S. ADAMS, PH.D., North Carolina 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

SENATE 

MIKE LEE, Utah, Vice Chairman 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico, Ranking 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

MARGARET WOOD HASSAN, New Hampshire 

WHITNEY K. DAFFNER, Executive Director 

KIMBERLY S. CORBIN, Democratic Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS OF MEMBERS

Hon. Mike Lee, Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Utah ................................. 1 

Hon. Martin Heinrich, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico ..... 2 

WITNESSES

Statement of Dr. Robert D. Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of 

Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 

Cambridge, MA .................................................................................................... 5 

Statement of Dr. Charles Murray, W.H. Brady Scholar in Culture & Freedom, 

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC . 7 

Statement of Dr. Yuval Levin, Hertog Fellow, The Ethics and Public Policy 

Center and Editor of National Affairs, Washington, DC .................................. 9 

Statement of Dr. Mario Small, Grafstein Family Professor, Department of 

Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA ................................................ 11 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Hon. Mike Lee, Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from 

Utah ...................................................................................................................... 36 

Prepared statement of Hon. Martin Heinrich, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico .......................................................................................... 36 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Margaret Wood Hassan .......................................... 37 

Prepared statement of Robert D. Putnam ............................................................. 38 

Prepared statement of Dr. Charles Murray .......................................................... 57 

Prepared statement of Dr. Yuval Levin ................................................................. 59 

Prepared statement of Dr. Mario Small ................................................................ 69 

Response from Dr. Putnam to Questions for the Record Submitted by Senator 

Margaret Wood Hassan ....................................................................................... 84 

Response from Dr. Putnam to Questions for the Record Submitted by Senator 

Amy Klobuchar ..................................................................................................... 85 

Response from Dr. Small to Questions for the Record Submitted by Senator 

Amy Klobuchar ..................................................................................................... 86 

Response from Dr. Small to Questions for the Record Submitted by Ranking 

Member Martin Heinrich .................................................................................... 87 

Chart titled ‘‘Real Hourly Wages by Education’’ submitted by Senator Cotton . 89 

Report titled ‘‘What We Do Together: The State of Associated Life in America’’ 

prepared by Vice Chairman Lee’s staff of the Joint Economic Committee ..... 90 

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WHAT WE DO TOGETHER: THE STATE OF 

SOCIAL CAPITAL IN AMERICA TODAY 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2017 

UNITED STATES CONGRESS, 

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 106 

of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Honorable Mike Lee, 

Vice Chairman, presiding. 

Representatives present: LaHood, Maloney, Beyer, Jr., and 

Paulsen 

Senators present: Lee, Cotton, Cruz, Heinrich, Klobuchar, and 

Peters. 

Staff present: Daniel Bunn, Kim Corbin, Connie Foster, Martha 

Gimbel, Heath Hansen, Colleen Healy, Adam Hersh, Christina 

King, Paul Lapointe, Justus Myers, Thomas Nicholas, Matthew 

Nolan, Kwabena Nsiah, Victoria Park, Ernesto Rodriguez, and 

Scott Winship. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE, VICE CHAIRMAN, A 

U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH 

Vice Chairman Lee. Welcome. We call this hearing on the Joint 

Economic Committee to order. The title that we have selected for 

this hearing is ‘‘What We Do Together: The State of Social Capital 

in America Today.’’ 

I want to thank each of our witnesses and our Committee members for joining us today. 

Our Nation today faces very real economic challenges. As we 

heard during our Committee’s hearing last month, economic growth 

during the recovery has been meager and uneven. The U.S. economy has become less dynamic and innovative than in recent decades. We miss the strong productivity growth America enjoyed in 

the mid-twentieth century and the unusually large wage gains it 

brought. 

However, in historical and comparative perspective most Americans enjoy unprecedented material living standards. Our economic 

problems often take the form of unsatisfactory rates of improvement. We are growing richer less quickly than we did when we 

were poorer. 

Nevertheless, many Americans—poor, middle class, and 

wealthy—feel that something in our society is amiss. It is a feeling 

that cannot be reduced to economic anxiety. Rather, there is a 

sense that our social fabric in America is fraying. 

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And these concerns are reflected in objective measures of family 

and community health. To cite just a few of the trends that may 

be grouped under the rubric of ‘‘social capital’’: marriage and 

church going have declined; distrust of the Nation’s institutions has 

grown; mixed-income neighborhoods have become rarer; regional 

polarization has increased; and young men who are neither working nor looking for work have become more numerous and more 

isolated. We do less together than in the past, and we are worse 

off for it, economically and otherwise. 

Today’s hearing, along with a new report released on Monday, 

launches the Social Capital Project, a multi-year research effort 

that I have established in the Vice Chairman’s office. The project 

will investigate the health of the bonds of family, faith, community, 

and work that define our lives. 

An emphasis on social capital complements the economic lens 

through which we typically view national challenges today. Many 

of our ostensibly economic problems reflect the withering of our 

associational life. For example, the fragility of so many families 

today reduces upward mobility. And diminishing trust has implications for the decline in business dynamism since risk-taking requires confidence in each other and our institutions. 

Economic trends in turn affect the extent to which we cooperate 

to achieve our desired goals. The project’s inaugural report, ‘‘What 

We Do Together,’’ concludes that rising affluence has reduced the 

economic necessity of having close ties with neighbors and traditional institutions. It also highlights the extent to which the growth 

in two-worker families has affected investment in social capital. 

These economic changes have conferred valuable benefits to be 

sure, but by depleting social capital they have also come with costs. 

The twin pillars of economic—of American freedom—a free enterprise economy and a voluntary civil society—exist and operate 

within the vital space between the government and the individual 

where organic communities form and networks of economic opportunity and social cohesion are built. 

It is my hope that the Social Capital Project will start a new conversation for our country that emphasizes social solidarity and mutual cooperation. As we face today’s economic challenges, policymakers should ask how we can empower civil society, and what 

government should or should not do to thicken the middle layers 

between the individual and the State. 

I will now turn to the Ranking Member, Senator Heinrich, for his 

opening statement, and then I will introduce our witnesses. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Vice Chairman Lee appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 36.] 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH, RANKING 

MEMBER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO 

Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Senator. 

The topic of Social Capital is an important one, especially when 

it is used to build communities up. I worry, though, that this conversation can be used to blame disadvantaged communities for not 

already being successful. 

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It is easy to generalize about people and communities, but I believe we must resist doing that. Because otherwise, Congress, instead of building communities up, risks institutionalizing stereotypes and discrimination. It is offensive and, frankly, not constructive to blame communities for the challenges that they face today. 

Blame is no substitute for a strong economic foundation, and smart 

investments in our children and our workers. Social networks help, 

but investments in individuals and communities are key to building a better future and a more vibrant economy. 

I think we would all agree that Congress cannot and should not 

force people to marry, become friends with their neighbors, or even 

join civic organizations or churches. We need to be both strategic 

and realistic about the policies that we pursue. 

When I was a child, both of my parents worked. For my father, 

his union job helped him to earn a higher wage, and protections at 

work. Belonging to a union is a source of social capital and my family benefited from that. I benefited from that. 

My mother, on the other hand, did not have a union job and at 

one point her factory schedule was three weeks on, one day off, 

plus overtime nearly every day. Her wage under-valued her work 

and under-valued her, leaving her with little time to spend building those networks. 

So as we prepare to hear about the role of social capital, about 

ways to help working families get into the middle class, to even 

have the time to make community connections and shore up social 

capital, it is important that we not lose sight of investing in people 

like my mother. 

Right now the deck is stacked against some and in favor of others. Children of wealthier parents start with a leg up. Good schools 

are increasingly concentrated in high-income areas, leaving millions of our children behind. While a college education has long 

been thought of as the path to the American Dream, that path is 

financially out of reach for far too many Americans. 

As Americans we have a deep commitment to everyone getting 

a fair shot. To achieve that, government has a significant role to 

play. It must provide the essential building blocks: affordable child 

care and pre-K; quality K through 12 education; comprehensive 

health care and access to affordable post-secondary education. 

We can break the cycle of poverty by simultaneously providing 

programs and supports to parents and their children. The two-generation approach is evidence-based. It is data-driven bipartisan policy with a history that works. 

I have seen the power of 2Gen models in New Mexico with initiatives like the United Way’s Early Learning Center in Santa Fe, 

which offers year-round full-day services for children right next to 

technology, employment, and social service assistance for parents 

under one roof. 

Helping parents and children in these programs develop supportive networks is an important component of helping these families achieve success and building stronger communities. We must 

expand proven programs like the EITC and the Child Tax Credit 

that lift almost 10 million people out of poverty each year. 

We need universal pre-K starting at age 3. We have long known 

that investments in early education boost education outcomes and 

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increase earnings. Government cannot and should not go it alone. 

In Gallup, and Carlsbad, Silver City, and throughout New Mexico 

it is the schools, the churches, the nonprofits, the businesses, the 

philanthropic groups that define the community. They are the community anchors, but government must provide the basics. 

Professor Small’s research on Head Start attendance reminds us 

that limited, inexpensive interventions can have deeply meaningful 

impacts. His research found that when parents of Head Start students develop networks, attendance improved. Just one example, 

but we can learn two important things from this research. First, 

that social networks can strengthen an already effective program. 

And second, that without that government program we would not 

have the foundation on which to build. 

I look forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Heinrich appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 36.] 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you, Senator Heinrich. Now I 

would like to introduce each of our witnesses. 

Dr. Robert Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of 

Public Policy at Harvard University. He is also a member of the 

National Academy of Sciences and the British Academy, and a past 

president of the American Political Science Association. He has received a number of scholarly honors, and has written 14 books, including ‘‘Bowling Alone’’ and his latest book, ‘‘Our Kids: The American Dream In Crisis.’’ 

Dr. Putnam graduated from Swarthmore College where he won 

a Fulbright Fellowship to study at Balliol College, Oxford, and 

earned Masters and Doctorate Degrees from Yale University. 

Dr. Charles Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American 

Enterprise Institute. He has written a number of books, including 

‘‘Coming Apart,’’ and his most recent, ‘‘By The People: Rebuilding 

Liberty Without Permission.’’ His first book, ‘‘Losing Ground,’’ has 

been credited as the intellectual foundation for the Welfare Reform 

Act of 1996. 

Dr. Murray holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor’s Degree in History 

from Harvard University. 

Dr. Yuval Levin is the Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public 

Policy Center, and a contributing Editor to National Review and 

The Weekly Standard. He is the founding Editor of National Affairs, a quarterly journal on domestic policy in politics. 

He served on the White House Domestic Policy staff under President George W. Bush, and was also a Congressional staffer. He is 

the author of a number of books, including ‘‘The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and The Birth of Right and Left.’’ And 

most recently, ‘‘The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social 

Contract In The Age of Individualism.’’ 

He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science at American 

University and holds a Ph.D. from The Committee on Social 

Thought at the University of Chicago. 

Dr. Mario Small is the Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology at 

Harvard University. He has authored a number of award-winning 

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ital In A Boston Barrio,’’ and ‘‘Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality In Everyday Life.’’ 

He is also an author of numerous articles on urban poverty and 

support networks, and he is currently writing a book on how people 

decide to whom to turn for social support. 

Dr. Small holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Anthropology from Carlton College, and a Master’s and Doctorate from 

Harvard University. 

Thank you all for your willingness to be here today to testify. 

And with that I would like to turn to Dr. Putnam for testimony, 

to be followed by Dr. Levin—to be followed, rather, by Dr. Murray, 

Dr. Levin, and Dr. Small. 

Dr. Putnam. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT D. PUTNAM, PETER AND ISABEL 

MALKIN PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, JOHN F. KENNEDY 

SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MA 

Dr. Putnam. Thank you. Vice Chairman Lee, Senators, Members, I welcome this opportunity to discuss the topic of social capital with you, as I have done in recent years with grassroots groups 

in virtually every district and virtually every State represented in 

this entire Committee. I am sorry that there is not everybody here, 

because I would like to talk to them about their home districts. I 

have visited them and talked with people in their home districts 

about these issues of social capital. 

Policymakers often focus on hard economic factors, ignoring softer social factors. In the last 25 years, scholars have collected hard 

evidence on these softer factors under the rubric of social capital, 

making this one of the fastest growing areas in social science. 

The literature is reviewed in the excellent staff report, so I can 

be succinct. Social capital refers to social networks and the associated norms of trustworthiness and reciprocity. We all intuitively 

recognize the importance of social capital because we are all immersed every day in many such networks: our families, friends, 

neighbors, work colleagues, folks from church, folks from the bowling league, even someone you met last night while celebrating the 

Celtics victory. 

Scholars have learned in recent decades just how deeply such 

networks influence our health, our happiness, prosperity, the safety 

of our streets, the productivity of our firms, the performance of our 

schools, and even the quality of our democracy. 

To illustrate the importance of social capital, I want to focus 

briefly on two policy issues, the first rooted in the early stages of 

life, the growing opportunity gap between rich kids and poor kids 

in America; and the second, an unnoticed problem that will arise 

when the Bowling Alone generation becomes the aging alone generation. 

First, the opportunity gap. As I described in my book ‘‘Our Kids,’’ 

the last several decades have witnessed a growing gap between 

rich kids and poor kids in the resources and the opportunities they 

have for upward mobility and personal success. In a perfect social 

storm, the opportunity gap causes, including as Charles Murray 

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has pointed out, growing economic inequality, increasing class segregation, and the collapse of the working class family. 

Social capital contributes to the opportunity gap. For example, 

families in the lower third of the population of all races and ethnic 

groups, in that part of the society the families are increasingly fractured and fragile, as illustrated in J.D. Vance’s ‘‘Hillbilly Elegy.’’ 

Scholars from various sides of the political divide disagree about 

exactly why this has happened, the collapse of the working class 

family, but all sides now agree that fragile families are bad for 

kids. 

Poor kids are also isolated from community life, from neighbors, 

clergy, civic associations, and even extracurricular activities like 

sports and music. This extracurricular gap in turn contributes to 

a gap in mentors, like coaches, and in soft skills like teamwork and 

grit, and even, eventually, differences in lifetime income, attributable to the difference—to this extracurricular gap. 

This class gap in football and band and so on is new to our history, and the explanation is simple and yet shocking: pay to play. 

When cost-cutting school boards in response to our pressure as voters began charging parents hundreds of dollars a year for a kid to 

play sports, it is no surprise that poor kids dropped out. 

In short, ignoring social capital has led directly to the opportunity gap. My second example is this: 

Bowling Alone is leading to aging alone, and that matters a lot. 

Providing care for aging Americans is a growing challenge. We all 

recognize the massive number of Baby Boomers now retiring, but 

few understand that per person Boomers will enjoy much less informal elder care than their parents. Many aging Americans now 

rely on paid elder care like nursing homes and home health care 

aides, but an estimated three-quarters of all care for Americans 

over 65 is provided by family, friends, neighbors, and civic organizations. 

Crucially, however, that statistic—three-quarters of all care—is 

based on the experience of the Greatest Generation, a now-vanishing cohort that had very high levels of social capital. By contrast, Boomers are now entering their sunset years with much less 

social capital. Compared to the previous generation as they, the 

previous generation, approached retirement, Boomers have roughly 

12 percent fewer spouses, 36 percent fewer children, 30 percent 

fewer close friends, and 40 percent fewer religious and community 

ties of the sort the Chairman referred to—sorry, Vice Chairman. 

In round numbers, in short, Boomers are entering retirement 

with one-third less social capital than their parents enjoyed. And 

that is not an academic matter. Social isolation is a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality, especially among the elderly. 

Less recognized is that lower social capital among Boomers compared to their parents will make it harder for Boomers to count on 

informal care as they age. 

Consequently, the need for paid elder care will rise sharply above 

current expectations, not simply because there are more Boomers 

but because fewer of them will be able to rely on informal care. 

Over the coming decades, paid elder care per Boomer will on average have to double as compared with the previous generation. 

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Now I know this is a policy discussion, but one could imagine 

progressive or conservative approaches to this problem, or a combination of both, but the problem itself will not vanish. This threat 

to our Nation’s health, both fiscal and physical, stems directly from 

the Bowling Alone in the 1970s, which will lead to Aging Alone in 

the 2020s. 

As with many other public institutions, including the opportunity 

gap, social capital is an under-appreciated dimension of this problem. 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Putnam appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 38.] 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Dr. Murray. 

STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES MURRAY, W.H. BRADY SCHOLAR 

IN CULTURE AND FREEDOM, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. Murray. I welcome the chance to testify before this Committee, and especially I welcome the chance to emphasize something in this polarized age. The staff of the Committee produced a 

report that I think Professor Putnam and I both agree is a really 

terrific report. 

Professor Putnam and I are on very different points of the ideological spectrum. I consider him to be the world’s greatest authority 

on social capital, and whereas we have some differences in policy 

recommendations the differences are overwhelmed by the ways in 

which we agree. I think that is heartening, and I hope that we can 

take advantage of that in dealing with this problem. 

In terms of what I can add to the discussion today, I have decided to try to focus on some of the ways in which this problem is 

so complicated, because I think that when we talk about statistics 

like the falling marriage rate, or the rising drop out from the labor 

force by males, that it lends itself to, well, the solution is we need 

higher working class wages so that it’s easier for people to get married. Or, we need more job opportunities and guys will come back 

into the labor force. 

I am not saying that such solutions would have no good effects; 

I think they would. But the actual ways, and the actual problems 

reach deeply into the ways that humans are socialized into institutions such as marriage and the labor force. And a good way to get 

a grip on those actual problems is ‘‘Our Kids.’’ 

Bob Putnam’s book that I think is just terrific, as I have said in 

print. It is at the heart of that book, and the reason I urge the 

Members of the Committee to read it, are these wonderful, beautifully told and beautifully researched stories of real people and 

real families. And what I admire most about the way these are told 

is, the narratives have not been sanitized to make them easy to 

deal with. 

We hear the voices of the unemployed whose manufacturing jobs 

were exported abroad. That is a real problem. And the voices of 

people who quit good jobs because they did not feel like working, 

or who got fired because they showed up late, shirked their tasks, 

and got in fights with co-workers—another real problem. 

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We hear stories of unmarried low-income parents who are fiercely devoted to their kids, and of other parents who created children 

casually and walked away from them casually. If I had to pick one 

theme threaded throughout all of these stories, it is the many ways 

in which people behaved impulsively but were oblivious to what 

would happen to them if they made the wrong step. 

This theme also appears in steroids in J.D. Vance’s ‘‘Hillbilly 

Elegy.’’ In many ways he describes a life history which was full of 

opportunity—prodigiously squandered opportunities. You read 

Vance’s account and keep saying to yourself: Why are they behaving so destructively? 

I respect Mr. Heinrich’s caution that we must not blame people 

for things beyond their control. It is also true that the real stories 

of real people and real communities get very messy in these kinds 

of ways. It comes down to the age-old problem of getting people, especially young people, not to do things that are attractive in the 

short term but disastrous in the long term. And, conversely, get 

them to do things that are not fun right now but that will open up 

rewards later in life. 

This is not a problem confined to any one socioeconomic class. 

The mental disorder known as adolescence afflicts rich and poor 

alike. And adolescence can extend a long time after people have left 

their teens. 

The most common way that the fortunate among us manage to 

get our priorities straight—and by ‘‘fortunate among us,’’ I am not 

really talking about money—is by being cocooned in the institutions that are the primary resources for generating social capital: 

a family consisting of married parents and active membership in 

a faith tradition. 

I did not choose that phrasing lightly, even though I realize it 

pushes buttons. I am not implying that single women are incapable 

of filling this function. Millions of them are heroically trying to do 

so as we speak, nor that children cannot grow up successfully if 

they don’t go to church. 

With regard to families, I am making an empirical statement. As 

a matter of statistical tendencies, biological children of married 

parents do much better on a wide variety of life outcomes than children growing up in any other family structure, even after controlling for income, parental education, and ethnicity. And they do so, 

I would argue, because of the ways in which they keep adolescents 

from doing destructive things. 

With regard to religion, I am making an assertion about a resource that can lead people, adolescents and adults alike, to do the 

right thing, even when the enticements to do the wrong thing are 

strong: a belief that God commands them to do the right thing. I 

am also using religion in terms of its role as a community, a community of faith, another borrowing from Robert Putnam. 

For its active members, a church is far more than a place where 

they go to worship once a week. It is a form of community that socializes the children growing up in it in all sorts of informal ways 

just as the family socializes children. This is not a prelude to a set 

of recommendations. I do not have any. 

Rather, I am just trying to argue that it is not a matter of ideology but empiricism to include that unless the traditional family 

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and traditional communities of faith make a comeback, the declines 

in social capital that are already causing so much deterioration in 

our civic culture will continue, and the problems will worsen. The 

solutions are unlikely to be political, in my view, but cultural. 

We need a cultural great awakening akin to past religious great 

awakenings. How to bring about that needed cultural great awakening? It beats the hell out of me. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Murray appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 57.] 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. Dr. Levin. 

STATEMENT OF DR. YUVAL LEVIN, HERTOG FELLOW, ETHICS 

AND PUBLIC POLICY CENTER, EDITOR, NATIONAL AFFAIRS, 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. Levin. Vice Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Heinrich, 

Members, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. And 

more than that, thank you for taking up this subject this morning. 

It is very encouraging to see the Joint Economic Committee turning its attention to the question of social capital, which I think is 

a crucial economic question. And I commend you and your staff for 

excellent work already evident in the report that you just released, 

and for the promise that it suggests about the Committee’s continuing efforts on this front. 

In my written testimony I suggest why I think this question of 

social capital or associational life has to be part of any discussion 

of the country’s economic prospects, and especially of the challenges 

that are confronted by the most vulnerable Americans. 

In these brief remarks this morning, let me say a few words 

about the challenges of making this a part of our policy conversations and how I think that might be undertaken responsibly. 

Maybe the best thing about the report that your Committee staff 

has produced is that it is unabashedly diagnostic. Too often those 

of us who are engaged in these debates are afraid to be dismissed 

as political radiologists. The radiologist will look over your scans 

very carefully and tell you half your ribs are broken. I hope somebody can help you with that. Good luck. And move on to the next 

patient. 

And I think many of us who study this subject often feel that 

way. We tend to respond to that by ending our discussions of this, 

or ending books and articles about it that offer a valuable diagnosis 

with prescriptive conclusions that are frankly often less valuable. 

The characteristic book on this subject, and I genuinely do exempt present company from that description, will offer profound 

and subtle analysis of what has happened to American 

associational life and why, and then will tack on some general 

ideas about how tweaking various social programs might make a 

difference at the margins. 

If the problems are as profound as we say, those solutions, although they can be valuable, are unlikely to cut it. And yet, if more 

comprehensive and radical reforms are needed, we do not have real 

evidence of what will work on a large scale. And in some cases we 

lack evidence even of what will work on any small scale. 

Obviously, stopping a diagnosis is unsatisfying and insufficient, 

particularly for policymakers, but we do need to make sure that we 

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start at diagnosis. And we have to make sure that we do not simply see that diagnosis as an excuse to double down on policy preferences that are not actually rooted in it. 

That is what happens a lot of the time, I’m afraid. Our social policy debates between the left and the right today usually amount to 

arguments about whether we should do more or less of what we are 

already doing. The left wants more and calls for increasing our investment in the model of social policy that we have. Generally 

speaking, the model built up around the Great Society. 

The right wants less, and argues for pulling back on those investments and letting other actors fill the space. And evidence about 

social capital is generally just stuffed into these boxes so that some 

progressives will say that stronger associational lives are only possible when basic material wants are met, which is certainly true, 

and that it is not happening sufficiently for too many Americans. 

So the evidence about social capital supports the case for greater 

investment in the existing safety net, or the case that inequality 

is the root of our problems. 

Some conservatives will say there are social programs that sometimes actively undermine our associational lives in the amassing of 

social capital by substituting for work, and family, and community, 

rather than reinforcing them, or by undermining personal responsibility. 

These sets of arguments are both correct, up to a point, but neither is sufficient. The evidence regarding social capital can support 

both views, but I think it actually gestures toward a rather different view. 

It is true of course that meeting basic material needs is essential, 

and that our society has an obligation to help those who need help 

doing that. But it should be clear by now that this alone will not 

address the deep social dysfunction that results from the loss of social capital in American life. 

It is also true that there are ways in which our social policy contributes to that loss of social capital, but that does not mean that 

rolling back that policy will reverse the loss. More importantly, it 

does not mean that the past half-century of social policy has been 

a failure. The War on Poverty has not failed. It has dramatically 

reduced extreme poverty in America, and it would be a perverse 

reading of the evidence on social capital to suggest that we should 

undo that important progress against poverty. 

But what the evidence does suggest is that the approach we now 

have to social policy is not adequate to helping revive associational 

life in America. It does not do a good job of either building on what 

works, or uprooting what does harm, and neither doing more nor 

doing less of it would by itself amount to a prescription that is responsive to the diagnosis when it comes to social capital. 

In part, that means that we should accept that public policy in 

general is not going to solve the problems of associational life in 

America. It could do more to help. It could do less to hurt. But it 

will not be the core of the solution. 

But that cannot be all that we say. We have to also think about 

how policy might help more and hurt less, and that requires us to 

look beyond the familiar model of our social programs and think 

about what genuinely different approaches might look like. 

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We need an approach to social policy that is rooted from the start 

in some understanding of the problem of social capital. And we do 

not have that approach, which means that we will need to seek it 

by some experimentation and some period of learning. 

To me, for one thing that points in the direction of empowering 

local institutions to attempt different approaches to our foremost 

social problems as they present themselves in different parts of our 

society. That is not because we know that local works better. In 

some instances it may. It is because we do not know what works, 

and experimentation is what you do when you do not have the answers. 

As my written testimony suggests, I think that this argues for 

some devolution of policy design, and not just policy implementation in welfare, and in labor policy, to a degree also in education 

and other arenas. And some work along these lines has been attempted over the years of course, so we can learn from both its successes and its failures. But above all, even more than arguing for 

local power, all of this argues for humility. And it argues for proper 

diagnosis, which has to precede any attempt at using public policy 

on a large scale. 

And so it adds up to commending the work that you are beginning here, and again to thanking you for inviting me to participate 

this morning. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Levin appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 59.] 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Dr. Small. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MARIO SMALL, GRAFSTEIN FAMILY PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MA 

Dr. Small. Vice Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Heinrich, and 

other Members of the Committee, I thank you for the invitation. I 

appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the discussion of social 

capital and economic opportunities. 

Social capital is something that nations can have, and something 

that individuals can have. A nation’s social capital is its degree of 

connectedness, sense of community, and participation. And as you 

all have read, there is an ongoing debate over whether these conditions have declined in the United States over the last 50 years. 

Today I will focus instead on the social capital of individuals, 

which is the resources that people have access to by virtue of their 

networks. These resources can be of many different kinds. There 

are three that are especially important: information, social support, 

and the reinforcement of norms. 

To be clear, I will use an example. Consider someone who has 

decided to improve his health by beginning to lift weights. This 

person can go it alone, but having a partner on hand will provide 

access to the three resources: 

First, information as the partner is likely to have access to different sources of information on nutrition or lifting. 

Second, social support, as the partner can serve as a literal spotter to assist while pressing heavier weights. 

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And third, the reinforcement of norms, as the partner will be a 

source of motivation. You are far less likely to skip going to the 

gym at six o’clock in the morning if your partner is going to be 

there waiting. These three resources will increase the odds that the 

new venture will succeed. 

The benefits suggested by this analogy are supported by the literature. For example, there is abundant evidence that the information available through networks helps people move up the economic 

ladder and get jobs. There is also evidence that the social support 

available through networks helps people avoid the worst mental 

and health consequences of major life stressors. 

Having noted these benefits, I must clarify two things. First, 

some commentators have used the term ‘‘social capital’’ to refer to 

core values such as hard work, marriage, and education. However, 

‘‘social capital’’ and ‘‘values’’ are different things. 

Values are beliefs. Social capital is a tool. Just as the weight lifter is more likely to fail not because he lacks the values but because 

he lacks the partner, so may a highly motivated person pursuing 

work or education have difficulty meeting her goals because she 

lacks the information or support or reinforcement that is available 

to social networks. 

Information is especially important. For example, many talented 

low-income students do not apply to elite colleges because they do 

not know that such colleges can provide grants to cover the costs 

of their own tuition charges. This kind of information is well known 

in middle class networks and easily taken for granted, but it is 

often missing among lower income kids. 

Second, I clarify that social capital is no panacea. Often, economic resources are necessary. Just as the lifter must be able to 

afford the necessary nutritional supplements and new clothing and 

expensive gym membership, so must low-income children have access to proper nutrition and school supplies and higher quality education to have good odds of success. 

Social capital alone is not enough. I will conclude my comments 

by focusing on the role that effective policy can have in helping 

people build valuable social capital. One of the best sites to do so 

I believe is early education programs which can be mobilized to 

help not only children but also their parents. 

Many child care and early education programs help parents build 

social capital. A national survey recently found that 60 percent of 

mothers whose children are enrolled in child care centers made at 

least one new friend there, and as a result had networks of close 

friends more than 30 percent larger than those of statistically comparable mothers whose children are not in centers. 

These networks matter for both mental and material hardships, 

for example. Low income mothers whose children are enrolled in 

centers and who made friends there had 40 percent lower odds of 

depression. The material hardship scores, or the extent to which 

they had their utilities cut off, or went hungry for lack of food, or 

showed other indicators of true economic difficulty, were more than 

20 percent lower. 

The promise of social capital has motivated early education centers to experiment with different ways of improving their work. 

One randomized controlled trial managed to increase Head Start 

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attendance by 7 percent in the winter months just by nudging parents into mobilizing their own social capital, thus maximizing their 

return on tax dollars already spent while also helping improve 

school readiness among low-income children. The intervention 

itself, I should say, cost almost nothing. 

Improving and expanding early education have been topics of debate in recent years. I believe thinking more expansively about the 

role of parents may prove valuable. Parents of children are part of 

a unit, and social capital is a great tool through which effective policy can provide all members of the unit true access to opportunity. 

I recommend that Congress explore the potential of interventions 

focused on social capital in contexts such as early education programs. 

Thank you, very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Small appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 69.] 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. I appreciate your opening 

statements. We will now begin five-minute rounds of questioning, 

and I will begin with that. Then we will alternate between Democrat and Republican Members of the Committee. 

I would like to open by asking each of the witnesses a question, 

and this time we will start with Dr. Small and move over to Dr. 

Putnam. 

We are trying to use this project as an opportunity to expand 

Congress’s horizon, to look at things that Congress tends to overlook. We have metrics that Congress is constantly looking at, 

things like GDP, the rate of GDP growth, the percentage of GDP 

coming into the Federal Government through the Tax Code, and so 

forth. But limits on time and resources sometimes create blind 

spots for us as lawmakers, sometimes resulting in us not exploring 

perhaps as we should new perspectives on things like family stability, opioids, the decreased workforce participation rate, and so 

forth. 

So as the Social Capital Project develops its research agenda, 

what are some of the issues that you would recommend that we 

take a look at from our vantage point as policy makers, paying special attention of course to anything that might potentially garner 

bipartisan support. 

Dr. Small. 

Dr. Small. Sure. I think it certainly makes sense. If the question 

is what aspects of capital should we pay more attention to beyond 

the economic questions that we typically pay attention to, I think 

one issue is paying a great deal of attention to the things that have 

probably declined, but also the things that have probably increased. 

So there have been many—there has been substantial evidence 

of a decrease in certain forms of social capital, as you have all seen 

in the report, but there have also been new forms of community 

connectedness and engagement that simply did not exist 50 years 

ago that we now have to start measuring: The extent to which people can connect with people beyond their local communities, for example, has increased. 

Some forms of volunteering, for example, have also increased. Political participation beyond your local town has increased in many 

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respects because the internet and social media make things possible that were not possible in the past. 

I think one of the most important things to do, if we are interested in collecting believable evidence on these questions, is to 

make sure that the nostalgia we all tend to face for certain kinds 

of things does not cloud the chance of looking at the new ways in 

which young people are finding ways of creating social capital. I 

think that is going to be an important part of the conversation. 

The second thing I think is also going to be an important part 

of it is looking not just at collective measures of social capital, and 

just of measures that tell us what the country as a whole is doing, 

or how the country as a whole has changed, but also the extent to 

which there are differences among individuals, among people of different class groups, or different racial groups, for example, different 

genders, and the extent to which they have access to the kinds of 

opportunities that social capital may provide. 

So I think that would be the second set of issues I would look 

at: heterogeneity within the country, as opposed to only trends 

within the country as a whole. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Dr. Levin. 

Dr. Levin. Thank you for the question, and I would really very 

much second what Dr. Small has said in a number of ways. I think 

first of all this kind of project has to engage in some kind of sociology of success. That is, thinking about what works, especially 

amid circumstances where so much is failing. 

So in communities where there are profound problems, the question of how the exceptions happen, what drives them, what makes 

them possible, is a very important question to explore and to think 

about. Both because it’s simply not the case that people simply live 

with failure. People respond to failure. And I think we in Washington are not very good at seeing the ways in which a statistical 

disaster is actually also home to some examples of human thriving 

that we need to learn from. And the ability that people have to 

thrive amid circumstances where social capital is absent is going 

to help us learn how to help other people succeed. 

Secondly, I also think that the sheer diversity of the challenges 

people face means that policy makers in Washington have to think 

about how to empower Americans to help each other. We obviously 

have to think also about how to use public policy to help individuals in difficult circumstances. But part of what it would mean to 

think about social capital as both a target and a means, both an 

end and a means, is to look for ways in which public policy can 

help people help one another, by empowering community institutions through which people help each other, and seeing that those 

institutions are not just ways of delivering benefits. They are also 

ways of creating culture. 

And ultimately what you find is that in the areas of life where 

people are not able to make decisions that are constructive for 

themselves, they change those habits because the culture around 

them changes, or because the culture around them drives them to 

change. 

You know, I was involved when I worked in the Bush White 

House in an initiative to look at ways of improving marriage rates 

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in some communities, for example. And I would say that initiative 

was a failure. We tried many things. We tried it in ways that produced a lot of data, and the data showed that most of what we 

tried did not succeed. And by ‘‘most,’’ I mean really almost everything. 

The few exceptions involved circumstances where people are affected not by incentives that they see out of the corners of their 

eyes, but by cultures in which they live fully. And obviously there 

is a great limit on how much government can do in that respect, 

but I think we should look for ways to be helpful to communities 

that are finding ways to help their members succeed in difficult 

times. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Dr. Murray. 

Dr. Murray. [Microphone is off.] 

Vice Chairman Lee. Please hit the button so we can hear. 

Dr. Murray. You have got a real problem with getting a bipartisan set of measures, because even though the scholarly end of 

this there is a growing consensus, I think that when I talked about 

the family, the traditional family and communities of faith as being 

major sources of social capital, I know very well that Bob Putnam 

and I could talk about this and find ourselves in the same page on 

virtually everything, not because ideologically we think families are 

great and religion is great, but in terms of the concept of social capital these are two huge sources of it. 

And so if you were going to have an index of social capital, like 

you have an index of poverty, you would have to have those in 

there. But that would mean saying, well, actually married families 

are a good thing, and unmarried families are a worse thing in some 

measurement sense with regard to social capital, and the same 

thing with regard to religion. That ain’t gonna be bipartisan no 

matter what you do. 

What Bob Putnam successfully did with ‘‘Bowling Alone’’ was to 

get people of a very wide divergence of views to accept that we had 

a problem there. But I am going to turn it over to him right now 

so he can speak for himself. But he did this by having a whole lot 

of indicators. 

So he had in the book a statement that half of all social capital 

is religious in origin. That is a simplification. He could say that in 

the book, but he could still appeal to a lot of readers because he 

talked about lots of other things, too. 

So if you want somebody that will solve this problem for you, he 

is sitting to my left. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Dr. Putnam. 

Dr. Putnam. I am not sure whether that last comment was a 

friendly comment or not—that is, that I am going to solve all the 

problems. I will try to be telegraphic. 

First, social capital is a purple concept. It encourages us to think 

of problems that are intelligible not just through a blue lens or not 

just through a red lens; it requires us to think across ideological 

lines. 

And a lot of problems in the real world are purple problems. And 

as I have talked to your constituents over the last three or four 

years, ordinary people in America understand that problems are 

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not either neatly red or neatly blue. It requires a—and I am extremely sympathetic to the initiative of this Committee—but it requires a certain willingness to think in purple terms, to understand 

that not every problem is either just a red problem or a blue problem. 

Now I will try to be brief in answer to your specific question, sir. 

I think that how to understand the internet, which emerged actually just after I wrote Bowling Alone, is a complicated question. 

And the question is: Will the internet make the problem better or 

worse? And the answer to that question is: Yes. 

That is, it will make both better and worse, and there is a lot 

of debate among experts and in the literature about the way social 

capital is affected by the internet. The crucial idea here I think is 

to think in terms of alloys. An alloy is a metal that is composed 

of two other metals, but the mixture of the two has properties different from either one. 

And most of our networks, most all of our networks are alloys. 

That is to say, nobody now lives solely with face-to-face ties, and 

nobody now lives solely with electronic ties. And so you have to ask 

about what are the natures of the alloys that are mixtures of social 

media and face-to-faceness. Not all the alloys are the same, but I 

am urging the Committee first of all to focus on that. 

Secondly, do not go into it thinking that the internet is either the 

solution to all of our problems, or the root of all of our problems. 

But, thirdly, to think not in those dichotomous terms, either faceto-face or electronic, but rather to think about different forms of alloys. 

My last point is, I do think that the Committee can make a 

major contribution in providing or encouraging the executive 

branch to provide better measures at a local level for social capital. 

We do have—and I am agreeing here—we do have good national 

data about these trends. That is what I draw on, and that is what 

all of us draw on. It is much harder to be able to say, as I said 

before I have talked to almost all of your individual constituents. 

I have been in Peoria, and in Decatur, and I have been in actually 

everybody’s constituency, and at those levels there are differences 

in the character of social capital, but we cannot talk about them 

in a rigorous way because we do not have good local-area based 

measures of social capital. 

That is not impossible; it is just not being done. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Senator Heinrich. 

Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. 

I am going to yield for just a few seconds of my time to Senator 

Klobuchar. She has a meeting at the White House she needs to get 

to. 

Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Thank all of you. 

I have read your book, Professor Putnam, and enjoyed it. And 

thank you for being here today. 

Today’s hearing really provides a chance to look at how to build 

social capital and why it is important to look at policies about how 

we can do a better job, especially in this isolating time. As someone 

who reads their Twitter feed every so often, I would say it can be 

an isolating time with people’s reactions to things. 

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But at the same time, as I know from my State of Minnesota, 

and Representative Paulson knows from our State, is that we build 

social capital every day. It is built in the church basements over 

a hotdish on Friday nights at a raffle to raise money for a good 

cause; at the Hmong marketplace where many in our Hmong community and others from around the Twin Cities get together to 

shop; or the Brian Coyle Center where many in our Somali community—we have the biggest Somalian community in the country in 

Minnesota—gather together; or in the spaghetti dinner on Minnesota’s Iron Range. 

So that is how I see us still building social capital. And now more 

than ever I see this isolating time of polarization, and I have actually seen more people turn out, whether it is the Jewish community 

center event, or an expansion of our Dorothy Day Center in St. 

Paul, than I have ever seen since I have been in political office. 

So it is possible that people are reacting to what they hear in a 

good way. One troubling aspect of this hearing today, we are here 

to discuss a very important issue that impacts our society, and I 

think there are many constructive ways in which we should examine the issue of social capital. And it is our responsibility to seek 

a wide range of expertise. 

I do want to express concern that I do not believe it is constructive to engage on this matter with individuals whose theories are 

drastically polarizing and have been discredited. And I will leave 

it at that, and I will submit my questions on this point on the 

record, but thank you very much. 

[The questions referred to appear in the Submissions for the 

Record on page 85.] 

Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Senator. I am going to get started with my questions. I want to start with you, Dr. Small. 

We have heard some different theories today about why some 

people succeed, why others do not. Are you aware of any evidence 

that inherent genetic differences drive those economic outcomes? 

Dr. Small. No. 

Senator Heinrich. Would it be wise for Congress to make policy 

predicated on either gender or genetic or racial stereotypes? 

Dr. Small. No. It would be counterproductive. 

Senator Heinrich. Alternatively, would it be wise for Congress 

to focus on policies that invest in both people and communities, irrespective of race, religion, creed, and also irrespective of how diverse, or even how remote or rural they are? 

Dr. Small. Absolutely. That is what I am hoping we do today. 

Senator Heinrich. So you have done a lot of research about the 

benefits of investing in early childhood education—for example, 

Head Start. As the Congress works to invest in our Nation’s children, not only because it is the right thing to do but because investing in our kids actually means investing in our collective economic future, what lessons would you hope that members of this 

Committee would learn? 

Dr. Small. Thank you for the question, Senator. Yes, I would say 

a couple of things. 

One is that we pay special attention to the evidence concerning 

the importance of early education. The evidence that both highquality organized early education programs work, the evidence that 

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also from a cost/benefit perspective they are a wise investment. 

And the evidence that children in low-income communities both in 

the poorest inner city neighborhoods but also in rural parts of the 

country, tend to respond positively to those. 

The second thing I would add is that new evidence that is emerging from actually local experiments in multiple parts of the country 

suggest that thinking more expansively about the potential role of 

social capital and improving the benefits of these early education 

programs suggests that we could do more, and more effectively, by 

thinking a little bit more broadly about such programs. 

I guess the third thing I would say is that one common theme 

across many of these new experimental programs I have seen is the 

idea of no longer thinking about children and parents separately, 

but thinking about the family holistically. This is an issue where 

I found commentators on both the left and the right make a version 

of the same point: that if you think not just about whether you’re 

taking care of the kid, but thinking about a child as part of a family unit with a collective, not an individual set of problems, and 

therefore a collective not individual set of solutions, you are likely 

to get far better results. And you are likely to use far better—make 

far better use of taxpayer dollars. 

Senator Heinrich. Thank you for bringing that up, because 

that is one of my other particular interests in this, is the sort of 

two-generation approach to trying to deal with poverty. And we 

have seen great leadership in very diverse states from Utah, to 

New Mexico, and others, with that approach. And we have seen 

real positive outcomes from it. I have certainly seen that work in 

a number of my communities in New Mexico. 

I have actually introduced some legislation with Senator Collins 

to try and increase opportunities, and get out of those silos. And 

I think it may have been Dr. Levin who mentioned the War on 

Poverty and the progress that was made in the 1960s in some of 

these programs. But we need to recognize where we are today. And 

one of the things that I think the two-generation approach does is 

it recognizes that many of those things are in silos. And if they are 

in silos and you cannot access them, then they are not actually 

supporting the family network. 

So we will start with Dr. Small and go right across to Dr. Putnam because I know he has an interest in this, as well. 

What are your thoughts on the two-generation approach and its 

potential for sort of weaving these two things together, of basic 

foundational support, along with the importance of social capital? 

Actually, let’s start with Dr. Putnam and then we will come back 

to the left. 

Dr. Putnam. I think for all the reasons, I think it is a terrific 

idea. I think for all the reasons that you alluded to, treating just 

the needs of a child—and of course that is important—but thinking 

of the child as part of a family unit and therefore providing coaching, and all around what is often called in the field wrap-around 

support for the family, is a really—the evidence says that is synergistic. You get more out of combining early childhood education and 

family support than you would get out of either of those taken separately. 

Senator Heinrich. Dr. Murray, do you have—— 

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Dr. Murray. I am not familiar with the literature on the twofamily support work, so I am really not competent to respond. 

Senator Heinrich. Dr. Levin. 

Dr. Levin. I think it is an important innovation in thinking 

about public policy to understand that one of the problems that we 

have had in social policy in America is that it has been overly individualistic in how it thinks about people in need. That it has tended to isolate individuals even within a family, let alone within a 

community, and approach them as needing resources on their own. 

The fact is we are all dependent on one another. And I think any 

approach to social policy that recognizes that and that helps people 

help people who are dependent on them, that it be responsible, 

while also helping them meet needs, is an improvement. 

I would say that it is important not to force a model from the 

Federal level all the way down to the local level; to be supportive 

of different approaches, including this kind of approach, but not to 

assume that one size is going to fit all in a country that is as vast 

as is ours. 

Senator Heinrich. Dr. Small, do you have anything to add? 

Dr. Small. Largely that I would agree. I think the point that 

philosophically it is difficult to tell people to worry more about family but to create programs that only target their kids and not the 

parent does not make a lot of sense. 

I think also from a practical perspective what we have is a situation where there are out there very strongly skilled professionals 

who are specialists on children, or who are specialists on parents 

and workforce development, or early education, and therefore they 

do what they do best. I think in the absence of an outside intervention of the kind you are describing where there is an incentive for 

these different kinds of specialists to think about the family as a 

unit, it will be difficult for them to be naturally inclined to do so. 

So I actually find that with the idea that you are proposing to 

be very promising both from a philosophical but also from a practical perspective. 

Senator Heinrich. Thank you. Dr. Putnam, you have talked extensively about how weaker social networks among Baby Boomers 

could make their care dramatically more expensive as they age. 

And I have seen in my own family the importance of the interaction between being able to access health care, be it through the 

VA, private insurance, or Medicare, and then being able to have 

the social connections and the support that make life valuable. 

Would cutting health care coverage, for example—you know, we 

saw a bill emerge from the House in the last few weeks that cuts 

Medicaid by I think $800 billion, if I have my figures correct—does 

that, how does that make those social support challenges either 

more or less acute? 

Dr. Putnam. Thank you for that question. I first of all have to 

say I am not a gerontologist, so this is not a field that I—unlike 

some of the other stuff where I am willing to present myself as an 

expert, my work in this area is based just on looking at the implications for gerontology of what we already know. Namely, the Baby 

Boomers at every stage of their life have had just much less connection. 

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I think too the policy options that flow from this are pretty clear, 

and I do not need much explanation for me. We are going to have 

to spend a lot more money than we currently realize on caring for 

aging Baby Boomers. Not just because there are a lot of them, but 

because they do not have the social support that the Greatest Generation, their predecessors, had. 

Whether that comes from public sources, Medicare—Medicaid, I 

mean, and Medicare, but Medicaid is the relevant portion because 

that is supporting the long-term care, or through private sources, 

that is a debate that both sides of this Committee are familiar 

with. And I do not have anything particularly to add to it, except 

to say the problem is real. It is not going to go away. 

I think that is all I can add to the conversation. 

Senator Heinrich. I am going to yield back the rest of my time 

so we can get to some of the other members. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Representative LaHood. 

Representative LaHood. Thank you, Vice Chair Lee, for having this hearing. And I want to thank the witnesses today for your 

valuable testimony and for being here. 

There are really two statistics that jump out when I look at the 

materials today. One is the statistic that shows between 1970 and 

2016 the share of children in America raised by a single parent or 

by neither parent rose from 15 percent to 31 percent. So doubled. 

And the second one is, between 1970 and 2015 births to single 

mothers rose from 11 percent of all births to 40 percent of all 

births. 

In looking at both of those statistics and the societal effects and 

the costs that it has on our country, and I think about that in a 

number of ways, and I think it affects rural as well as urban, I 

spent 10 years as a State and Federal prosecutor and in that role 

as a prosecutor before every sentencing we get a presentence report 

with the details of the defendant we are going to sentence. And 95 

percent of them read the same when it comes to early childhood or 

background: born into a single family home. Did not have any of 

that upbringing that we are used to in a conventional family upbringing. And wound up early getting involved with the criminal 

justice system, drugs, alcohol, and led to, you know, further crimes 

in the system. 

And I think about the societal costs of these stark statistics: the 

public education system, particularly in our urban areas, how much 

money we throw at to increase graduation rates and drop-out rates. 

Not only the court system, but our jails and prisons and how they 

are full of kids in some ways and adults that are affected by a single-family upbringing, or no parent. 

And then of course health care costs, which we do not talk 

enough about, but mental illness, behavioral health that we have 

to pay money for, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. And then of 

course our welfare system and how it drains on that. 

And as I listen to the testimony here today on what are the remedies, what from a public policy standpoint can we look at to help 

stem this tide? And it is difficult to find real success stories. 

And I know, Dr. Putnam, you talked about it being a purple 

issue. Dr. Levin, you talked about trying to increase marriage 

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rates, and that was a failure. And trying to have more community 

input. 

But I guess from a public policy standpoint, sometimes throwing 

more money at it perpetuates the problems in many ways. And so 

trying to figure out, are there success stories that each of you can 

point to that have worked in specific areas? And are we—is the trajectory changing as we move on? Or is it going to continue? And 

I will start with Dr. Levin. 

Dr. Levin. Well thank you for the question. It is a vitally important question. I would say a couple of things. 

First of all, there are stories to tell about genuinely significant 

reversals in dangerous social trends. I think the example of teen 

pregnancy over the past 15 years is an under-appreciated and 

under-studied example of a genuinely disastrous cultural trend 

genuinely turning around in a meaningful way. 

I would not say sitting here that I can give you an exact description of why and how that happened, but it certainly included some 

combination of bipartisan agreement about the existence of the 

problem, of frank discussion of ways of addressing it, ways of taking it on that made both sides of our politics uncomfortable, and 

ultimately a culture change that made a big difference. 

Now I do not think that there is in that a model for dramatically 

changing rates of family formation that could have the same kind 

of effect, but I think that again place by place, community by community there may be something to learn there. 

I would also say—and this is a challenging point to make in a 

way that does not diminish the significance of the problem—if you 

had told an American in 1950 that the rates of out-of-wedlock 

births would rise from 5 percent that year to almost 50 percent in 

2017, and asked that person what our country would look like as 

a result, they would describe a country that looks much worse than 

our country. They would have described a hell scape that we would 

not recognize. 

The fact is that we have dealt with this problem in ways that 

can help us think about what success can look like. I do not think 

it is possible to return to the family formation rates of the 1950s. 

Those were very unusual. It is not the case that that is how things 

always were in America until the 1960s. It was a very unusual moment in post-War America, and it is a moment that we should be 

careful about using as a standard and a norm in all of our cultural 

discussions. 

People have found ways of thriving despite enormous disadvantages, including being born into broken families, which is an enormous disadvantage. I think we have a profound obligation to try 

to help people build stronger families for their children, and to try 

to help children grow up in stronger families. 

We also have an obligation to deal with the reality that a lot of 

Americans will not grow up in intact families, and to try to find 

ways of allowing them to thrive nonetheless. That is not to offer 

solutions, right? That is an answer in search of a final sentence 

that resolves the problem. But I do think that we need to think realistically about what problems we are looking for solutions to, and 

to define that in as broad a way as we reasonably can in public policy. 

LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

22 

Representative LaHood. Thank you. 

Dr. Murray. 

Dr. Murray. You asked specifically about marriage rates and 

out-of-wedlock birth rates and turning those around, are there any 

success stories? 

I am not familiar with any. Also, one has to recognize the degree 

to which this is a class-based phenomenon; that marriage rates for 

those in the upper middle class are still very high. They stopped 

declining in the 1980s. Divorce has gone down for the upper middle 

class since then. Marriage is alive and well in the upper middle 

class, and the bottom has fallen out of it in the working class. And 

the statistics I used in ‘‘Coming Apart’’ I focused specifically on 

non-Latino whites for a very clear reason. I do not want people to 

be under any illusion this is related to ethnicity. This is an American social problem. 

And at the time I was looking at those numbers, the ones for 

2010 were that among white working class folks that you had 48 

percent married, down from the more than 80 percent in 1960. It 

has been essentially a collapse. And if you go to white working 

class communities, or I am sure black working class communities, 

or Latino ones, I do not know of any examples where marriage 

rates have risen. 

And if others on the panel have, I would love to hear it. 

Representative LaHood. Thank you. 

Dr. Putnam. 

Dr. Putnam. Actually I agree with the preceding two speakers. 

The statistics you quoted are of course right. The one you probably 

meant to include but did not is this one about class differences, the 

growth in out-of-wedlock births and the growth of fragile families 

is entirely concentrated in the working class. And that only makes 

the problem worse because it means that kids from one side of the 

tracks are not getting the same support at home. 

There is a surprising amount of consensus actually among experts here. There would not have been 10, 15 years ago, but there 

now is. And I think there is consensus on the following points: 

One, this is happening. That is, there is a growing class gap in 

family formation. 

Two, it is important. It does matter for the kids. 

Three, everybody recognizes that there are single moms who are 

doing a bang-up job against big challenges. So it is not a matter 

of blaming the moms. But nevertheless, it is a problem. 

Four, the change probably has been driven by a combination of 

cultural and economic factors. That is to say, you ask me, I am 

mostly on the left. I think there is a big cultural change that has 

happened, but I also think there have been big economic changes 

that have happened. And I think if we frame this as if we have to 

choose between why has this happened, is it really economics, or 

is it really culture, that is going to get in our way of trying to fix 

it. 

And the last point, I think we agreed that we can think of things 

on the economic side that might make a difference. That is, providing EITC or there are other ways in which you could provide 

greater economic support to families in this situation. 

LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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But I think there is broad agreement, and you have all said that, 

that even though there are clear cultural causes of this, we do not 

know how to turn that dial except with respect to the teen pregnancy issue. It is important that we understand this. The teen 

pregnancy problem is—I do not want to say it is solved, but there 

has been a huge decline in teen pregnancy at the very same time 

that there has been a growth in out-of-wedlock births. How could 

that happen? Because most of these out-of-wedlock births are not 

happening to teenagers, they are happening to people, couples in 

their 20s and 30s. And exactly how you begin to address that is, 

honestly, the cultural side of that is not so clear to me. 

I mean I think it would be great if we could figure out how to 

do that, but I do not know of any success stories at that level. And 

I think that is actually what I have said, most experts in this field 

would agree with what I have just said, I think. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Representative Maloney. 

Representative Maloney. Thank you. 

And, Dr. Putnam, thank you. Thank you for your books. 

Mr. Chairman, let me begin with a few thoughts on this hearing. 

Dr. Murray has rather infamously written, and I quote, ‘‘No woman 

has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great 

philosophical traditions.’’ End quote. 

Let us think about that for a moment. It is not only grossly unfair, it is demonstrably untrue. From Hypatia the great Greek 

mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who was the head of 

the Neopelatonic School during the Byzantine Empire, to Maria 

Mitchell, the first woman to discover a comet, to Grace Hopper who 

wrote COBAL, one of the first computer programming languages, 

to the now-famous mathematicians from the Academy Award winning nominated movie ‘‘Hidden Figures,’’ who helped America win 

the space race, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary 

Jackson, to Maria Mayer who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, and 

Speaker Ryan’s all-time favorite philosopher Ayn Rand, these are 

just some of the lucky few, the women who defied the odds and the 

structural barriers to succeed in philosophy and science. 

Just think about how many more could have joined their ranks. 

Women solve problems, cure diseases, and invent the next great 

thing over and over again, yet we must continually combat the 

stereotypes in Dr. Murray’s work. 

Offensive views about a woman’s capabilities are wrong-headed 

and hold women back from their full potential. These ideas keep 

women out of STEM fields in schools, out of executive positions at 

work, out of the board room, and out of Congress. 

We even see them in Presidential politics when one candidate 

claimed that a woman did not have, quote, ‘‘the stamina,’’ end 

quote, for the Presidency. These biases are a crutch and an excuse 

to not address the real barriers women face in our economy, underinvestment in child care, the lack of any paid parental leave, unequal pay, and so on, and so on. 

In my humble opinion, Congress should not give these ideas a 

platform, and our Committee should not seek to elevate offensive 

claims that rely on spurious evidence. 

I would like to ask Dr. Small and Dr. Levin, we like to think 

about America on the cutting edge. But our policies hold back toLAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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day’s working families in so many ways. New parents are not guaranteed working families paid leave for the birth of a child. We are 

among two nations in the world that do not provide this safety net 

guaranteed to our families. 

Many eligible young people cannot access Head Start. Our Family and Medical Leave Act, a very important bill, but it should include other important family challenges such as conferences with 

teachers on a child’s performance in school. And millions of lowwage workers do not have predictable schedules. They cannot even 

count on knowing when they are going to be working even a few 

days ahead of time, a situation that Senator Heinrich pointed out 

was a challenge his own mother confronted. 

So, Dr. Small, how would addressing these policies—these are 

concrete policies that we could address—how could addressing 

these shortcomings enable America’s working families to build a 

better, stronger social capital and social network? 

Dr. Small. Congresswoman, thank you for that question. It actually provides a great opportunity to connect the prior conversation 

to this one. 

I would like to make an important observation about the rise in 

the rate of birth to unmarried mothers, which is that it is not so 

much the case that working class parents are driving the trend. It 

is that upper middle class parents are the exception. In other 

words, it is really only among upper middle class parents where 

this trend has not risen. 

In fact, to put this in perspective, you might remember that in 

the 1960s the old Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan put out a report on ‘‘The Negro family: A Case of National Action’’ it was titled, 

and he pointed out that among African Americans birth to unmarried mothers were extremely high. 

Well today, births among middle class whites are higher than 

they were to unmarried—than they were, excuse me, to African 

Americans at the time Moynihan was writing. It is a trend that 

has happened across the board. Again, not upper middle class. But 

there are not just upper middle class and working class people. 

There are lots of middle class people out there, and among the middle class the trends are high, and they are higher than they were 

when Moynihan sounded the alarm. 

What this tells us is not that this is not an issue, but that the 

core problem was the lack of resources to manage giving birth as 

an unmarried mother, rather than just giving birth as an unmarried mother, because many middle class parents who are doing so 

today seem to be doing fine. 

In that context, I think the point you have made about the importance of opportunities for those mothers is essential. We are 

unique among the developing countries in the paucity of resources 

and opportunities we give to mothers early and shortly after—during and shortly after the birth of their children to participate fully 

in the economic system. 

This includes insufficient opportunities for paid leave. Also, insufficient support for full-time early education for their children. 

And also not fully effective or efficient enforcement of anti-discrimination legislation. 

LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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I think if you saw support for these three things, you would find 

that those families who choose to do what increasingly everyone is 

doing will find that their mothers participate as fully in the economic system as their inherent abilities would naturally allow, and 

in many other countries, provide them the opportunity to do so. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Senator Cotton. 

Senator Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this 

very important hearing. And thank you to our extremely distinguished panel of witnesses for appearing today, and for all the important work you have done over the years. 

I would like to start with Dr. Putnam and your written testimony. On page 5 you write: ‘‘This cherished American Dream is 

evaporating for over 25 million children born to low-income, lesseducated parents in the last three decades.’’ A little bit later you 

write, ‘‘Rich kids and poor kids are now growing up in separate and 

unequal Americas.’’ 

That is the case across racial and ethnic lines, correct, Dr. Putnam? 

Dr. Putnam. Yes, sir. 

Senator Cotton. And you tell a story that I have seen with different names on it, most of us have, very poignant about Alissa and 

Layla. Alissa, a rich kid in Southern California whose parents can 

afford a fancy private school, and swimming lessons to get her into 

a better college, and Layla whose mother is out of work, who has 

to work at an entry-level job and go to a for-profit college hoping 

that she can get ahead. Those disparities that you write about I 

think we have all seen back home in our home towns and states 

with depressing regularity. 

You go on on page 6 to say further, ‘‘Rich kids enter kindergarten 

almost a full year ahead of bottom-third kids and rich kids increasingly attend schools with other rich kids, and poor kids with other 

poor kids.’’ 

You have what you call ‘‘Scissor Graphs’’ on page 7 and page 8, 

which also tell the tale of the amount of time that richer parents, 

better educated parents, are able to spend time with their children 

and developmental time in what you call enrichment experiences 

like swimming lessons or summer camps, time spent together at 

family dinners and in extracurricular activities. 

I want to explore that further with a chart that we have here, 

and I will orient the audience to that chart. This is real hourly 

wages by education. So over here (indicating) you start at 1973. It 

is normalized to 100 where basically everybody is the same. 

And you see over time coming out to just after 2003. So this does 

not include continued disparities. The growth in wages or decline 

based on education. And you see a very strong correlation. Those 

with the most advanced degrees have seen the highest wage 

growth. College degrees nearly as high. But then here (indicating), 

some college but not a degree, barely any growth at all. High school 

graduation, a decline. Less-than-high school education, a collapse 

in wages. 

Does this reflect what you write about in your written testimony, 

Dr. Putnam? Is this one of the driving causes of the decline in social capital and social trust among more stressed families and 

stressed communities? 

LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

26 

Dr. Putnam. Yes, sir. It is not the only cause, but it is an important background factor. And then, if I can add—— 

Senator Cotton. Yes, please. 

Dr. Putnam [continuing]. What the work that I summarized in 

my testimony that I wrote about in ‘‘Our Kids’’ suggests is the 

translation of that graph into the scissors graph in individual families means that increasingly family status is inherited. It is passed 

from—increasingly, and that makes it even worse. 

Senator Cotton. And is that because in part divisions along 

educational and class-based lines become more self-reinforcing and 

perpetuating than older ethnic, or racial divisions did in the mid20th Century? 

Dr. Putnam. Yes, sir. 

Senator Cotton. You write a little bit further in your testimony 

on page 10 about ‘‘areas of interest that were left aside: successful 

economic and job development policies in communities are likely to 

have important positive effects on the local opportunity gap, but assessing such strategies was outside the scope of our expertise.’’ 

So the point there would be finding some way for people who 

have less than a college degree to once again partake in the American Dream that increasingly is out of touch for them? 

Dr. Putnam. Yes, sir. Can I add just two quick qualifications? 

One is, I used, quickly, rich and poor, but I was not comparing Bill 

Gates’ kids to homeless kids. I was comparing kids coming from the 

upper third of American society—that is, kids coming from collegeeducated homes. My grandchildren are in that sense ‘‘rich kids,’’ although they are not rich. And I was not comparing them to the 

poorest of the poor. I am comparing them to what we used to call 

the working class. That is, people who did not get past high school. 

So I know you understand this, but I do not want the quick 

terms ‘‘rich’’ and ‘‘poor’’ to get misunderstood. We are talking about 

a basic—— 

Senator Cotton. I come from Darnel, Arkansas, where $18,000 

makes me a millionaire. 

Dr. Putnam. Yes. Secondly, the passage of my testimony that 

you, written testimony that you referred to, came from a report 

that I chaired that was produced by 50 experts from across disciplines and across party lines and so on. We tried to figure out 

how can we begin to narrow the opportunity gap? 

And I have no doubt that local economic development strategies 

of the sort that you all explored in your previous hearing a month 

ago are important. 

I also think, however—and we did not talk about those here, but 

we did talk about a lot of ways in which individual kids coming 

from disadvantaged backgrounds could be helped to get back onto 

what we call ‘‘on ramps,’’ things like apprenticeship programs, and 

community college reforms and so on that would enable poor kids, 

kids coming from the bottom part of that graph, themselves to 

move up the ladder. 

That blockage, increasing blockage of circulation upward is I 

think a really grave problem for America. 

Senator Cotton. Thank you very much for those answers and 

the testimony, Dr. Putnam. And my apologias to other witnesses. 

My time expired. But I do want to just conclude by saying, to me 

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one of the most important policy challenges we face as a Congress 

is to help find a way to increase the wages of people in our country 

who do not have college degrees, or who do not have advanced degrees. 

I would submit one of the easiest policy levers that we have is 

our immigration policy, to reorient our immigration policy towards 

supporting higher skilled workers as opposed to the current policy 

which is heavily skewed towards unskilled or lower skilled workers 

which directly competes with the workers in this area here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you. 

Representative Beyer. 

Representative Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

all of you for coming to be with us today. 

As we engage in the conversation on social capital, I believe it 

is important that we remember that racism in our society is still 

very real. Just this weekend Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer, 

whose headquarters are right down the street from my house, led 

two white supremacist rallies, one by torchlight, in Charlottesville, 

Virginia, my own Commonwealth. 

The United States Congress itself has a long and ugly history on 

matters of race and gender. We are reminded of this every day as 

we walk past statues of by-gone bigots and misogynists. It is also 

worth remembering that those racist luminaries whose views and 

policies which were rejected by all 535 Members of Congress, often 

turn to pseudo-science to justify hatred and exploitation. 

Cognizant of this history, we would hope that we would do everything in our power to make a clean break with that foul part of 

our legacy, as opposed to dressing it up in new clothes and returning it to these marble halls. 

Vice Chairman Lee, I am fascinated by the stated topic of this 

hearing today, and I found your past comments on social capital 

very valuable. But as I sincerely looked forward to discussing this 

issue in depth with Dr. Small, Dr. Levin, and Dr. Putnam, but I 

am dismayed that instead we are creating a forum for the discussion of critical economic issues in the best traditions of this Committee, the decision to invite Charles Murray risked turning this 

hearing into a sideshow. 

I cannot imagine, Senator, that a man of your intelligence and 

political acumen was unaware of the meaning and consequences of 

inviting Charles Murray. I will note that this seems no accident 

that Chairman Tiberi has taken the unorthodox step of abdicating 

this hearing to you, and that many of your Republican colleagues 

have chosen to avoid this hearing altogether. 

I am aware that arguments about free speech are often offered 

when defending invitations made to Dr. Murray, but I want to be 

clear: This has nothing to do with the First Amendment. The Constitution guarantees his right to write and say and publish whatever he wishes, but there is no Constitutional right to testify before 

a Congressional committee. And I do not believe that this Committee’s time and resources should be used to burnish his reputation. 

After all, this is unconstrained exercise of his Constitutionally 

protected right of free speech that gave him his toxic reputation in 

the first place. 

LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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Dr. Small, I found your testimony and your scholarship interesting, and I hope we have time to discuss it later in future depth, 

but I think we have to address the elephant of bigotry in the room. 

Can you give me your professional opinion of ‘‘The Bell Curve’’ as 

a matter of scholarship? 

Dr. Small. It’s not a very good book. There are many reasons I 

could offer. I do not know how much time you have, Congressman. 

If you would like a longer answer, I would be happy to provide it. 

Representative Beyer. Well let me phrase it a little differently. 

What is your opinion of the utility of a book that argues that African Americans are born with lower IQs than White Americans? 

That there is a racially based genetic difference in IQ? Can this 

really be a guide for policymakers? 

Dr. Small. Not a very effective one, no. 

Representative Beyer. Let me move on, then. 

Dr. Putnam, I am in the heart of the Baby Boom. And at least 

the culture I was raised in, which was pretty mixed, like the one 

that you write about in your book, your most recent book, but we 

all went to church. We were all in the Boy Scouts, Little League, 

summer camp, dinner together at six o’clock. 

How come we don’t have any friends? And why do we have fewer 

friends and fewer spouses and fewer children? Not the kids that 

are 25 and 30, but the ones that are 55 and 65? 

Dr. Putnam. Thank you for that question. I have spent a lot of 

time in the book building room, which was written now 20 years 

ago, trying to understand why this had happened. And I teased out 

a variety of things that contributed to that, things that were happening in the years when you were growing up. Suburbanization, 

for example, is part of the problem. 

Television, I thought, was a big part of the problem because it 

privatized our leisure time. But then there was a big, unexplained 

part of why it happened. That is, there is clearly a big difference 

between the generation before the Boomers, that is, what other 

people call the Greatest Generation, who had very—sort of the parents of the Baby Boomers, had very, very high levels of social capital in every respect that we are talking about here: more family 

stability, more community involvement, more friends, and so on, 

than the Boomers. 

But why that is was a puzzle to me, and it is actually a bigger 

puzzle now. And the easy thought would be to think well it was 

World War II that created that sense of civic obligation, solidarity, 

and so on, and I think there is something to that. Forgive me now 

for alluding to coming attractions in response to that question. I 

am now at the moment up in the woods of New Hampshire trying 

to finish a book on that question: Why? Because it had not been 

happening forever. 

In the previous half of the 20th Century we were getting more 

and more connected. And then sometime in the 1960s there was a 

turning, and we began to be less and less. All of those things. 

And why that it is is still a mystery to me. When I finally crack 

the mystery I will finish the book and then I will be glad to come 

back and testify. I am sorry not to be helpful in the answer to that 

question. 

Representative Beyer. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

LAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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Vice Chairman Lee. Senator Peters. 

Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you 

calling this hearing. 

But before I begin my questioning, I just want to briefly address 

a troubling aspect of this hearing, which we have heard from some 

of my other Members as well. Essentially we are here to discuss 

a very, very serious and valid issue in American society, the issue 

of building social capital in our communities. And I believe that 

many people on this dais today would agree that there is both declining trust in the institutions and a declining trust between fellow citizens. 

And we as lawmakers will play a very important role to help 

bridge these divides. However, before us today we have a witness 

who serves no purpose other than to bring divisiveness to this 

body. And while I am sure all of us here believe deeply in freedom 

of speech and expression, as well as the need for Congress to seek 

a wide range of opinions and expertise, a witness who has written 

extensively to promote racist and sexist stereotypes is a needless 

distraction from what we need to be doing here. 

To have someone who holds these views elevated alongside actual policy experts before us today is disrespectful to our other witnesses and members of the Committee in the important topics we 

have to discuss. 

So with that, I would like to take a look, a very broad look at 

what we are facing in this country that I am very concerned about. 

And that is, obviously declining social capital, but I look at it as 

just declining trust; that we are seeing this erosion of trust in our 

society that I think has very ominous implications for the democracy that we all love, and the Republic that we cherish here in the 

United States. 

And I have seen that trust over the years of public service that 

I have had. I was a State legislator for a number of years. Then 

I got out of politics and loved being out of politics for a while. And 

then when I came back in 2009 in Congress and started holding 

town hall meetings, this was a period of a few years between those 

two experiences. The reaction that I got from folks, the vitriol, the 

anger, the belief in issues irrespective of facts, was pretty remarkable in that time period. 

And we have continued to see it go forward. And I just give an 

example. During the health care debate in 2009 as we were debating the Affordable Care Act, I had town hall meetings, and some 

of my colleagues are having town hall meetings today, dealing with 

the opposite side of that issue, but I remember people screaming 

and hollering, not wanting to trust any statements that were made. 

I would even put statements on the board with the actual language of the bill, word for word, that you could get from any 

source, and people would scream, ‘‘You’re lying! You’re lying!’’ And 

I say, ‘‘These are the facts.’’ 

And it seems now that we have gone to a world where facts do 

not matter; that we are in a post-truth world; that all news, if it 

is not news that people like, then it must be fake news. If you do 

not like judicial opinions, it is not because you do not agree with 

the judicial thinking behind the judge, it is because the judge is a 

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‘‘so-called judge,’’ or because of the ethnic background of the judge 

and cannot be critical. 

This erosion of trust that we are continuing to see, and seems to 

be accelerated particularly by particular political leaders who exploit that, I think has very ominous implications for the future of 

our country. 

So if our panelists—let’s start with Dr. Putnam. Talk a little bit 

about what you are seeing as an erosion of trust broadly, and what 

you think that means for us going forward. And these are not 

issues that are going to be easy to solve as legislators, and be able 

to solve with any one particular Federal policy. You have talked 

about many policies here today, which are all great. But this is 

something much bigger than all of that. And we are not just seeing 

it in the United States. We are seeing it in Europe. We are seeing 

the kinds of movement, the kind of post-truth, post-order kind of 

movements around the world now. In fact, at the Munich Security 

Conference that I was at, one of the themes was how do we live 

in a post-truth world? 

How do we change that, Dr. Putnam? 

Dr. Putnam. Thank you for the question. It is obviously a fundamental one facing our whole country these days. But it is important to understand—I said ‘‘these days,’’ but it is important to understand that this trend, the trend in declining trust, and I would 

say trustworthiness too, and reciprocity, and mutual esteem, just 

being nice to one another, that trend goes back a long way. That 

did not begin in 2008. It did not begin in 2016. Pick your date, your 

political date. It didn’t begin then. It has been going down for a 

long time. 

And I do not mean that you did, but a lot of commentators are 

talking about that and want to put the blame on some particular 

political person or ideology or moment—— 

Senator Peters. And I do not want to do that. 

Dr. Putnam. I know that you don’t, and I am insistently wanting to be purple here. This is not caused by particular political actions. 

If I can be a little academic for a moment—that’s what I am— 

it is important to distinguish, as I lay out in my testimony, between two different kinds of social capital. Social ties that link us 

to other people like us—and that is called bonding social capital— 

and social ties that link us to people unlike us, and that’s called 

bridging social capital. 

So my ties to other white male elderly Jewish professors, that is 

my bonding social capital. And my ties to people of a different generation, or a different race, or a different religion, or a different political party, that is my bridging social capital. I am not saying 

bridging good/bonding bad. Because if you get sick, the people who 

bring you chicken soup will represent your bonding social capital. 

But we need a lot of bridging social capital. Democracy needs a ton 

of bridging social capital. America has in the past been pretty decent about having bridging social capital. Sorry for the jargon. It 

just means you have good friends who do not share everything 

about you. 

There has been a collapse in bridging social capital in America. 

And part of that is because of this growing physical segregation 

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that Charles Murray has talked about. We are not even living near 

other people who have different views from us. 

I think that is the right diagnosis. How to change that is a complicated problem. I could talk a lot about specific policy things, but 

actually I think we have to understand that is the fundamental 

problem. We are just pulling apart as a society, and not just with 

respect to who shows up at town meetings, but with respect to our 

daily lives. 

Senator Peters. Dr. Small. Dr. Levin. What about bridging capital? What do we need to do? 

Dr. Small. So I guess I would—thank you, Senator. The first 

thing I would say is I would agree, first of all, that trust in government is down. And also trust in media and news from multiple 

sources, communication sources, is also down. And as you all know, 

political polarization is also up. 

In terms of sort of what to do, I guess part of the way I would 

think about this question is in terms of the old saying about sunlight being the greatest disinfectant. I think trust in government 

needs an increase in transparency. 

While it may not reverse the long-term secular trend Dr. Putnam 

just referred to, it would certainly make a difference. 

I think strong support from the Federal Government for science 

and scientific research that is impartial and objective would also 

slowly begin to restore faith in certain institutions of government. 

So I agree that these problems are longer lasting than any single 

individual or set of people, but I guess I would have a more optimistic view about the potential for short-term actions that are in 

fact within the power of the Congress to begin to chip away at the 

distrust in some of our core institutions. 

Dr. Levin. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I think it is a 

very important facet of this set of trends that Dr. Putnam and Dr. 

Murray have described. And I just think Dr. Murray’s very important book ‘‘Coming Apart’’ is one way of understanding how this 

has happened. 

To me one way of thinking about an approach to rebuilding trust 

is to think about how trust is built. And trust is largely built interpersonally. It is not built at a national level all at once, generally 

speaking. It is built between people. And I think that for us to 

build up more trust in our political life would require us to allow 

more of our political life and more of our public policy conversations to happen at the level where people meet each other face to 

face. 

And that suggests allowing more power to flow through local institutions, and to flow through community institutions. That is a 

very general answer. It is not particular policy formula for addressing this problem, but it seems to me that it would help us to turn 

down the temperature in Washington some so that we do not think 

of our politics as an endless fight to the death. And it would allow 

us to speak to each other face to face in ways that make it difficult 

to treat each other as simply caricatures. 

It is not always impossible to treat as caricatures people who are 

sitting right in front of you. I think it happens all the time. I think 

it is happening now in some respects. But I do think that it is 

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sions to happen at levels where people can participate directly, 

they may be a little more likely to be drawn in. But, you know, 

that is an answer at the margins and I would not pretend that it 

is a solution to the problem simply. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Senator Cruz. 

Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank 

you for being here. Thank you for testifying. I appreciate your coming before this Committee. 

Dr. Murray, in your testimony you came to the conclusion that 

part of the solution for the many challenges we face is likely to be 

less political and rather cultural. Could you elaborate on this 

point? And in particular, give your opinion of the importance of 

strong families, and faith, and community life towards improving 

social capital? 

Dr. Murray. I am basically going to second what Bob Putnam 

said earlier, that if we gathered people together 20 years ago on 

issues such as is religion really important social capital? Is the 

family, the traditional family really important, there would have 

been a huge divide depending on the political predilections of the 

people we are talking about. 

We have made progress on those fronts. And so now, I am not 

speaking as a person of faith, I am an agnostic actually, although 

I am wavering in my unbelief, and I have been divorced. So in all 

of those ways, I am not speaking as a ‘‘True Believer’’ in the institutions of family and faith. I am speaking as a social scientist, as 

Robert Putnam is, saying this thing called social capital is absolutely crucial to the way that a free society works. 

It has been the signature of American exceptionalism, actually, 

from the time of Tocqueville, on through the rest of the 19th Century and into the 20th Century. The way that American communities worked was different from the way communities worked anywhere else in the world. And the reasons we behaved differently 

are captured in ‘‘social capital’’ as Robert Putnam has described it. 

And, that is going down the tubes. And it is going down the 

tubes in large part, not entirely but in large part because the institutions of family and of faith have deteriorated. So once again I 

have stated the problem. The progress consists of the much greater 

consensus that we have now than we had before. That does not get 

us any closer to a solution, with one glimmer of hope. 

The United States has had at least three, and maybe four, religious Great Awakenings, depending on which historian you read, 

and they had enormous consequences. There was one in the 18th 

Century. There were two in the 19th Century. Maybe one in the 

1970s. They had enormous consequences for the polity as a whole, 

and they also came out of nowhere. They coalesced. They had enormous impact, and you really could not see it coming. 

In a way the Civil Rights Movement reflects the same kind of 

phenomenon where the Civil Rights Movement really got going in 

the mid-1950s and by 1964 we had the Civil Rights Act. 

So if the United States has been able to turn culturally on a 

dime when the people sensed that things had gone badly wrong before, it is not inconceivable to me that it will do so again. And I 

can go no further in being helpful about how that might happen. 

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33 

Senator Cruz. Dr. Putnam, would you care to elaborate or amplify on any of those themes? 

Dr. Putnam. No. As we have said repeatedly, with respect to the 

importance of communities of faith and families, I think there is 

broad consensus among the experts. There is not broad consensus 

about why the problem has happened. That is, there are different 

views even probably among us about exactly why the family has 

collapsed, and exactly why people have turned away from communities of faith. 

And also I think probably we all agree it is not just those two 

institutions. Those are ones that Charles has emphasized, and I 

agree with that, but it is also true of Rotary Clubs and bowling 

leagues and many, many other examples of social capital. 

If I may, Senator, I would like to piggyback on some comments 

that other people have made that I agree with, actually. I do think 

that this problem, if we reverse engineer, if it is 2020 and we have 

begun to turn this around, the first signs will be at the State and 

local level around America. That is where America has in the past 

fixed its problems. 

And it involved and included exactly the period of the turn of the 

19th to the 20th Century when there was another great religious 

fervor during that period, but not only that. It was also the period 

where labor unions got started. It was a period when most service 

organizations, Kiwanis, and Rotary, and keep going on. It was a period in which there were grassroots solutions to problems very 

much like the ones we face now. 

I give as one example, in response to the growing class gap then, 

in 1910, Americans in small towns in the heartland invented the 

high school. The high school that is free education for everybody in 

town, all kids in town, was not invented by—or if God did it, this 

is how He did it—in small rural towns, actually. 

Rich folks who had already sent their kids to private secondary 

education, boarding schools or something, became convinced that 

other people’s kids should also have access to four years of secondary education. It turned out to be the best decision we’ve ever 

made because that, providing all kids in town with these supports, 

on the one hand raised the total productivity of the American labor 

force so much that that single decision when it spread nationally 

accounts for most of American economic growth throughout the 

20th Century, and it leveled the playing field. 

Now I am not trying to say—please do not misunderstand me— 

that the high school, or maybe even any educational reform, is the 

solution to our problems now. I am trying to say the process by 

which we got there was by ordinary folks in ordinary towns where 

they were meeting face to face, and there was a lot of public division then—I am talking about 1900, 1910, big political turmoils, 

but people in face-to-face communities were able to put that aside 

and say, okay, so let that noise go on, how can we fix things here? 

My hope actually that we could begin as a country to turn this 

around is that as I go around the country talking to people, and 

especially in local communities, there is a lot, at the grassroots a 

lot of hope that things could begin to happen. 

Now will all the problems be completely solved at the local level? 

Absolutely not. We are going to need—at some point there are 

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going to be some successes that come out of that period of new experimentation, and then we are going to say, okay, that turns out 

to be really great. Let’s do that every place. 

So I am not saying that all these problems in the end are going 

to be solved at the national level—at the local level without national policies, but I am saying that that is where I think I would 

look for opportunities for making real progress outside the—to use 

language I used earlier—to look for purple solutions to this problem, not just red or blue solutions. 

Senator Cruz. Thank you. 

Vice Chairman Lee. Thank you, Senator Cruz. I want to thank 

each of our witnesses today. We decided to hold this hearing because it is on an important topic, and because it is such an important topic we sought to assemble four of the top experts in the entire country on this issue. And that is exactly what we did. 

This panel would have been incomplete without any one of you, 

and I am grateful to each of you for being here and for your willingness to reach out and identify issues that have gone 

unaddressed for too long, that have not been always socially popular, that have not always been on the cutting edge of getting 

news. They sometimes do get news, but perhaps not in the ways 

that anyone had intended at the outset. 

I appreciate your willingness to be here today and to inform us, 

and for your academic integrity and your objective, which is to 

identify issues that too often go unaddressed and are often ignored 

in our quest to address other more sexy, more popular, more palatable issues. 

These are difficult questions, and I deeply appreciate your willingness to shed light on them for our Committee. The record will 

remain open for five business days for any Member who would like 

to submit questions for the record. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

(Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., Wednesday, May 17, 2017, the hearing was adjourned.) 

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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE, VICE CHAIRMAN, JOINT ECONOMIC

COMMITTEE

• Our Nation, today, faces very real economic challenges. As we heard during our 

Committee’s hearing, last month, economic growth during the recovery has been 

meager and uneven. The U.S. economy has become less dynamic and innovative 

in recent decades. We miss the strong productivity growth America enjoyed in 

the mid-twentieth century and the unusually large wage gains it brought. 

• However, in historical and comparative perspective, most Americans enjoy unprecedented material living standards. Our economic problems often take the 

form of unsatisfactory rates of improvement; we are growing richer less quickly 

than we did when we were poorer. 

• Nevertheless, many Americans—poor, middle class, and wealthy—feel that 

something is amiss. It is a feeling that cannot be reduced to economic anxiety. 

Rather, there is a sense that our social fabric is fraying. 

• And these concerns are reflected in objective measures of family and community 

health. To cite just a few of the trends that may be grouped under the rubric 

of ‘‘social capital’’: marriage and churchgoing have declined; distrust of the Nation’s institutions has grown; mixed-income neighborhoods have become rarer; 

regional polarization has increased; and young men who are neither working 

nor looking for work have become more numerous and more isolated. We do less 

together than in the past, and we are worse off for it, economically and otherwise. 

• Today’s hearing, along with a new report released on Monday, launches the Social Capital Project, a multi-year research effort I have established in the Vice 

Chairman’s office. The project will investigate the health of the bonds of family, 

faith, community, and work that define our lives. 

• An emphasis on social capital complements the economic lens through which we 

typically view national challenges today. Many of our ostensibly economic problems reflect the withering of our associational life. For example, the fragility of 

so many families today reduces upward mobility. And diminishing trust has implications for the decline in business dynamism, since risk-taking requires confidence in each other and our institutions. 

• Economic trends, in turn, affect the extent to which we cooperate to achieve our 

desired ends. The project’s inaugural report, ‘‘What We Do Together,’’ concludes 

that rising affluence has reduced the economic necessity of having close ties 

with neighbors and traditional institutions. It also highlights the extent to 

which the growth in two-worker families has affected investment in social capital. These economic changes have conferred valuable benefits, but by depleting 

social capital, they have also come with costs. 

• The twin pillars of American freedom—a free enterprise economy and a voluntary civil society—exist and operate in the vital space between the government and the individual where organic communities form and networks of economic opportunity and social cohesion are built. It is my hope that the Social 

Capital Project will start a new conversation for our country that emphasizes 

social solidarity and mutual cooperation. As we face today’s economic challenges, policymakers should ask how we can empower civil society, and what 

government should or should not do to thicken the middle layers between the 

individual and the State. 

• I now turn to Ranking Member Heinrich for his opening statement, and I’ll 

then introduce the witnesses. Thank you. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH, RANKING MEMBER, JOINT

ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

The topic of social capital is an important one, especially when it is used to build 

communities up. 

I worry, though, that this conversation could be used to blame disadvantaged communities for not being successful. 

It’s easy to generalize about people and communities. But we must resist doing 

that. 

Because it is offensive to use this platform here in Congress to promote the institutionalizing of stereotypes or discrimination. It is offensive, and frankly not constructive, to blame communities for the challenges they face. 

There is no substitute for a strong economic foundation and smart investments 

in our children and workers. Social networks help, but investments in individuals 

and communities are key to building a better future and a more vibrant economy. 

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37 

I think we’d all agree that Congress cannot force people to marry, become friends 

with their neighbors, or join civic organizations or churches. We need to be both 

strategic and realistic about the policies we pursue. 

When I was a child, both of my parents worked. 

For my father, his union job helped him earn a higher wage and protections at 

work. Belonging to a union is a source of social capital, and my family benefited 

from that. 

My mom, on the other hand, didn’t have a union job. Her schedule was three 

weeks on with one day off for a wage that undervalued her and her work, leaving 

her with little time to spend building networks. 

So as we prepare to hear about the role of social capital, about ways to help working families get into the middle class—to even have the time to make community 

connections and shore up social capital—it’s important that we not lose sight of investing in people like my mom. 

Right now, the deck is stacked against some and in favor of others. 

Children of wealthier parents start with a leg up. Good schools are increasingly 

concentrated in wealthier areas, leaving millions of children behind. 

While a college education has been long thought of as a path to the American 

Dream, that path is financially out of reach for many Americans. 

As Americans, we have a deep commitment to everyone getting a fair shot. To 

achieve that, government has a significant role to play. 

It must provide the essential building blocks –affordable child care and early 

learning, quality K–12 education, comprehensive health care and access to affordable post-secondary education. 

We can break the cycle of poverty by simultaneously providing programs and supports to parents and their children. The two-generation approach is evidence-based, 

data-driven, bipartisan policy that works. 

I’ve seen the power of 2-gen models in New Mexico. Initiatives like The United 

Way’s Early Learning Center in Santa Fe which offers year-round, full-day services 

for children right next to technology, employment and social service assistance for 

parents. All under one roof. 

Helping parents and children in these programs develop supportive networks is 

an important component of helping these families achieve success—and building 

stronger communities. 

We must expand proven programs like the EITC and the child tax credit that lift 

almost 10 million people out of poverty each year. 

We need universal pre-K starting at age 3. We have long known that investments 

in early education boost education outcomes, and increase earnings. 

Government cannot—and should not—go it alone. 

In Gallup, Carlsbad, Silver City and throughout New Mexico, it’s the schools, 

churches, nonprofits, businesses and philanthropic groups that define a community. 

They are the community anchors. 

But, government must provide the basics. 

Dr. Small’s research on Head Start attendance reminds us that limited, inexpensive interventions can have meaningful impacts. 

His research found that when parents of Head Start students developed networks, 

attendance improved. 

Just one example. But we can learn two important things from this research: 

first, that social networks can strengthen an already effective program. And second, 

that without that government program we wouldn’t have the foundation on which 

to build. 

I look forward to your testimony. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARGARET WOOD HASSAN

• Vice Chair Lee, and Ranking Member Heinrich. 

• I want to begin by expressing my disappointment that my colleagues across the 

aisle have chosen to give a platform to a man who has peddled deeply offensive 

and thoroughly discredited theories questioning the intelligence of women and 

racial minorities. 

• Mr. Murray’s work relies upon twisting statistics to argue that women and minorities are intellectually inferior as a matter of genetics—and it has no place 

in the important discussion before this committee today on social capital. 

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Hearing on the State of Social Capital in America 

May 17,2017 

What is social capital?1 

Robert D. Putnam 

Malkin Professor of Public Policy 

Harvard Kennedy School 

The central premise of the social capital approach is that social networks have value. Social 

capital refers to the collective value of all social networks and the inclinations that arise from 

these networks to do things for each other [that is, norms of reciprocity]. The term "social 

capital" encompasses not just warm, cuddly feelings, but a wide variety of quite specific 

benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with 

social networks. Social capital creates value for the people who are connected and often for 

bystanders as well. That is, social networks have both internal and external consequences. 

Examples of social capital include neighbors informally keeping an eye on one another's homes; 

a tightly knit community of Hassidic Jews trading diamonds without having to test each gem for 

purity; barn-raising on the frontier; and exchanges among members of a cancer support group. 

Social capital can be found in families, friendship networks, neighborhoods, churches, schools, 

bridge clubs, civic associations, and even bars. Under what circumstances internet-based 

networks have the same benefits as face-to-face networks is a matter of considerable scholarly 

and public debate, but because that debate is still rapidly evolving, I eschew any summary of it 

in this testimony. 

Why is social capital important? 

A growing body of hard-nosed literature over the last several years shows that social capital 

helps provide many important individual and social goods. Individuals who are better 

connected socially are healthier and happier, find better jobs, live longer. Communities with 

higher levels of social capital are likely to have higher educational achievement, better 

government performance, faster economic growth, and less crime. In places with greater social 

connectedness, it is easier to mobilize people to tackle problems of public concern (a hazardous 

waste facility, a neighborhood crime problem, or building a community park, to name only a 

few examples), and easier to arrange things that benefit the group as a whole (a child-care 

cooperative among welfare mothers or a micro-lending group that enables poor people to start 

businesses or an effective neighborhood watch group). 

However, not all social capital is positive. Just as some forms of human capital (like knowledge 

of chemistry) can be used for destructive purposes (like building a bomb), so too some forms of 

social capital (like the KKK or AI-Qaeda) can have bad social consequences. Fortunately, 

malevolent uses of human and social capital are relatively rare, which is why we continue to 

teach chemistry in public schools and why we should continue to try to build social capital. 
39 

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Similarly, not all social capital is equally useful for all purposes. Just as two different forms of 

physical capital (a screwdriver vs. a hydroelectric dam) are useful for different purposes, so two 

different forms of social capital (friends who gather at the local bar vs. the local bar association) 

serve different functions. 

What are the different types of social capital? 

I won't try to summarize all the different types of social capital, but as an indication of some of 

the ways in which social capital varies, some social ties stem from informal networks (ordinary 

socializing, workplace ties, relationships with neighbors, personal support networks) and some 

from formal networks, such as being a member of an organization. Formal organizations consist 

of both private-minded organizations (primarily designed to produce fun or fellowship, like a 

choral society or a softball league) and public-minded organizations (designed to tackle an issue 

of public concern, like a crime watch group or a community service organization). The social ties 

can be analyzed both according to the strength of those ties (with strong ties being ones that 

are regularly used, where the individuals consider each other to be very close friends, and who 

often provide personal support to each other) and weak ties (where the ties are used only 

occasionally and tend to be used more for the flow of information). Similarly, the ties can be 

analyzed as to whether they are bridging social capital (that bring individuals together with 

others who are unlike them, by race, class, ethnicity, education, religion, age, gender, and so 

on) or whether ties are primarily bonding (that bring individuals together with others like 

them). Most groups are bridging in some ways and bonding in others: the Knights of Columbus 

is bonding in terms of religion and gender but bridges across class and income. In America 

religious communities constitute a particularly abundant form of social capital, both bonding 

and bridging. By some estimates, religious communities constitute up to half of all social capital 

in the country. 

How does social capital work? 

Social capital works through multiple channels: 

• Information flows (e.g. learning about jobs, learning about candidates running for office, 

exchanging ideas at college, etc.) depend on social capital. 

Norms of reciprocity (mutual aid) rely on social networks. Bonding networks that 

connect folks who are similar sustain particularized (in-group) reciprocity. Bridging 

networks that connect individuals who are diverse sustain generalized reciprocity. 

• Collective action depends upon social networks (e.g., the role that the black church 

played in the Civil Rights movement), although collective action also can foster new 

networks. 

• Broader identities and solidarity are encouraged by social networks that help translate 

an "I" mentality into a "we" mentality. 

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Isn't social capital too diverse to be captured in one term? 

Capital is an abstract concept that encapsulates. huge diversity. Economists initially debated 

whether you could talk about physical capital (which covers everything from a hammer to a 

computer to an automobile assembly plant). Similarly, human capital covers everything from 

piano lessons to a vocational course in cooking or automotive repair, to a graduate degree in 

Philosophy, and covers education of widely differing quality. So, too, does social capital cover a 

wide diversity of relationships: a team at the workplace, conversations with one's neighbors, 

relationships with the teachers of one's children, an alumni network, people you volunteered 

with a couple of times. The point in all these cases (physical, human, and social capital) is that 

these underlying attributes can have real value to society: Someone embedded in social 

networks that foster reciprocity can be more effective than someone who is not in such 

networks, the same way as someone possessing physical or human capital can be more 

productive than that same person without this physical or human capital. 

How can we identify policy "solutions" to social problems? 

When approaching a social or policy problem, moving from cause to cure is not simple. In fact, 

policy-makers need to make a series of calculations as they consider alternative policies. The 

following chart helps us understand and frame these calculations: 

Political/ administrative 

feasibility 

Policy 

lever 

Causal 

factor 

Social 

problem 

Identifying an important cause of a problem (like the opportunity gap discussed below) is 

merely the first step. The next step is to identify some efficacious policy lever that could 

influence that cause. For example, family instability is generally agreed to be an important 

cause of the opportunity gap, but most experts across the ideological spectrum agree that it 

has proved hard to identify a "marriage promotion" policy that can reliably increase family 

stability. In other words, finding an important cause doesn't guarantee that we know how to fix 

the problem. 

But even identifying a powerful policy lever that can alter an important cause of the problem 

does not end our search, because we also need to consider the political and administrative 

feasibility of that policy. For example, the extreme isolation of low income students in low 

income schools is another well-established cause of the opportunity gap. And in this case, 

careful evaluation of a program of cross-district busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North 

Carolina, showed that classroom integration can significantly raise the test scores of poor 

students without harming the scores of their rich classmates. Sounds like a terrific win-win: an 

efficacious policy to alter an important cause of the opportunity gap. However, despite these 

results, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg integration plan proved very controversial among suburban 

parents. The school board that had instituted the program was thrown out at the next election, 

and the successful integration policy was reversed. 

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This three-part policy analysis calls attention to the fact that in looking for ways to increase 

social capital, we should not be looking for perfection at any single stage, but rather looking for 

a policy initiative that might be reasonably feasible and reasonably efficacious in altering a 

reasonably important causal factor. We must weigh causality, efficacy, and feasibility all at 

once. What is politically or administratively feasible may well vary from community to 

community and may change over time, so policies cannot be mindlessly transferred from one to 

another, but lessons from one community about causal importance and policy efficacy may be 

highly relevant to other communities. 

Conclusion 

Although the first known use of the term "social capital" in its contemporary sense goes back at 

least a century to the work of L.J. Hanifan, state superintendent of rural schools in West 

Virginia, its use in both social science and public discourse has exploded in the last 25 years, as 

shown in the following chart. In 1992 the term appeared in the scholarly literature roughly 

once every two or three years, but nowadays that frequency has been expanded to one citation 

every two or three hours. That exponential increase across many, many disciplines-from 

In can history to evolutionary biology among dwarf deer in the Hebrides-has ranked social 

capital studies among the most rapidly growing fields in all of social science. 

Social capital is a "purple" concept, in the sense that its usefulness cuts across conventional 

partisan and ideological lines. It is particularly appropriate for "purple" public problems-that 

is, problems that are best examined through a combination of red (conservative) lenses and 

blue (progressive) lenses. In my remaining remarks, I want to illustrate this usefulness by 

discussing two important public policy issues-one focused on the early stages of life and one 

from the later years. 

The growth of scholarly and press references to "social capital" 

I""' 

1· .. 

II ... i 

,_, 

I::. 

1 

. . . . ... I~ !~~!~!§£~~~~!~~!~~~i~~~~~~~~~i~ 

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Example 1: Closing the Opportunity Gap: Social Capital in the Early Years of Life 

From the very first words of our founding document as a nation- "we believe ... that all men 

are created equal" -Americans' most widely shared value has been the principle of equality of 

opportunity. That is, how well a child does in life should depend on his or her God-given talents 

and hard work, and should not depend on what his or her parents did or didn't do. 

To be sure, American realities have often fallen short of our ideals. At the beginning, we did 

not mean "all" men, but all white men, and we did mean men (not women). But those 

deviations from the egalitarian promise of the Declaration of Independence were increasingly 

recognized as anachronistic, and in the ensuing years we've gradually moved toward a more 

inclusive interpretation of the promise. As Martin Luther King said at the 1963 March on 

Washington, "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the 

Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to 

which every American was to fall heir." 

However, the sad truth, chronicled in my 2015 book Our Kids, is that this cherished American 

Dream is evaporating for over 25 million children born to low income, less educated parents in 

the last three decades. The economic and social transformations of the last half-century2 -

rising economic insecurity, growing socioeconomic segregation, the collapse of the low income 

family, the unraveling of working class neighborhoods, and the decline of a collective sense of 

responsibility for "our kids"- have created a perfect storm of plummeting prospects for the 

next generation of Americans. Social capital is not the only factor responsible for this growing 

opportunity gap, but as we shall see, it is a central factor. 

Rich kids and poor kids are now growing up in separate and unequal Americas, their fates 

increasingly and unfairly tied to their "choice" of parents and the zip code in which they are 

born. In a gated community in sunny Southern California, for example, Jeannette, a stay-athome mother of three, spends her summer days driving her daughters to tennis and swimming 

lessons, shopping for nutritious family meals, researching colleges, and planning charity events. 

Her youngest daughter, Alyssa, works with a college essay tutor in the morning and then trains 

6 hours a day with her elite private swimming coach. Spending $20,000 a year on her coach is 

worth it, Jeannette and her 6-figure-earning husband believe, if swimming helps Alyssa get into 

a prestigious college. Meanwhile, twenty minutes down the freeway, Natalie, a single mom out 

of work from a back injury, peers anxiously at a fast-food menu, deciding whether to use her 

last few dollars on lunch or on gas. Her talented daughter, Laila, has won numerous awards at 

school, and Natalie always makes it to the ceremonies. But unlike Alyssa, Laila doesn't have a 

writing tutor, a private coach, or a college fund to help her into the future. She spends her 

afternoons working at Burger King, pinning her hopes for a better life on a dubious for-profit 

college and tens of thousands of dollars in loans. And these stories crystallize the growing 

inequality of opportunity in America, the opportunity gap that is experienced across all stages 

of a child's life. 

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Growing up with two parents is now unusual for working class children (the Lailas of America), 

while two-parent families are nearly universal among the Alyssas and becoming both more 

common and more stable as well as providing enhanced connections and support for their 

children. Whether eating dinner with their families, or participating in extracurricular activities 

like sports or volunteering (where they learn important "soft" skills), middle-class children 

come of age supported not only by their parents but also teachers and peers who launch them 

into adulthood and rush to protect them and give them second chances if they fall. Here is 

social capital advantage at its most vivid. 

Rich kids enter kindergarten almost a full year ahead of bottom-third kids, having had almost 

1400 more hours of developmental time with their parents (think Good Night Moon or patty 

cake time), having experienced more personalized daycare or the presence of stay-at-home 

moms, having received $5,700 more in annual parental expenditures on categories like musical 

instruments or books or summer camp or trips to Paris, and having heard 30 million more 

words than their poorer counterparts. 

Schools did little to cause the opportunity gap but are sites of widening inequality nonetheless 

due to differential resources and challenges that kids bring with them to school. As a result of 

increased residential segregation, rich kids increasingly attend schools with other rich kids, and 

poor kids with other poor kids. This furthers the social capital divide. In their backpacks, rich 

kids bring parental aspirations and parental resources, benefitting all their classmates, wealthy 

or not. In their backpacks poor kids bring gang violence, disarray at home, and stunted 

aspirations, and those things hamper education for all their classmates. Poorer schools 

increasingly are unsafe, provide fewer extracurricular activities, lack a strong academic culture 

and quality counseling, and are often staffed by less able, less experienced teachers who teach 

students who need greater help. 

Poor and working-class kids like Laila increasingly grow up in fragile families and neighborhoods 

where food and housing are insecure, resources are scarce, crime is high, relationships are 

volatile, and stress is toxic, leaving them too isolated and distrustful to develop the skills, 

knowledge, and social networks crucial for success. The affluence or poverty of neighborhoods 

is concentrated at the differing schools that the Lailas and Alyssas attend. The test score gap 

between rich kids and poor kids is large but exists well before kids even enter school. 

The Lailas of the world leave high school without the social connections and resources to land 

unpaid internships or quality jobs, without the test prep, lacking quality counseling from family 

or professionals to navigate college applications, and without the financial aid and "sawy" to 

choose realistic and economically productive careers. 

The following four "scissors graphs," drawn from dozens that appear in Our Kids, illustrate 

some of the growing gaps among American youth in the resources and opportunities available 

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to kids from affluent, educated homes and those available to kids from low-income, less 

educated homes. 

Although time spent by parents interacting with their children in developmental ways (e.g., 

reading to them) has been increasing in both college-educated homes and high-schooleducated homes, the increase has been so much greater for affluent kids that the average "rich 

kid" now gets about 45 minutes per day more in "Goodnight Moon time" than his or her poor 

counterpart. The latest brain science shows that this difference powerfully affects children's 

brain development and school readiness. 

Rich parents have long been able to invest more in "enrichment" for their children-for 

summer camp, piano lessons, trips to the zoo, and private education-but this gap too has 

dramatically widened in the last forty years. 

GROWING CLASS GAPS IN 

PARENTAL INVESTMENTS IN CHILDREN 

GOODNIGHT MOON TIME time spent by both parents In devetopmental<.hlldcare, 

childrenage<lQ--4,1965-2013 

100 +--------f-----

it' 

.. l 80 +--------~--~~-

~ 60 +-------;~·--7''----­ .~ 

::;; 

0 ~-----r------.------

1960 1980 2000 2020 

• BA or more • HS or less 

'ENRICHMENT EXPENDITURES trends ln speOOlrlQ per child, by nousehold income, 

in constant (2008) t1olJars. 1972-2007 

$7,000 ,---------------------

$6,000 ~-------------...."""----­

$5,000 +----------,.,-:-----

$4,000 4-------cd"-------

$3,000 t......-"-----------

$2,000 +----=~.....,.,=~====­

$1,000 h~=~~~~=:=;----

$0 +---~~-----,----.---. 

1970 1980 1990 2000 

...... Top dedle ....... Eighth decile 

~Thirddecde -m"Bottom decile: 

2010 

Family dinners (and conversations about "how did your day go?") have been shown to predict 

children's success later in life, but the stresses of everyday life, especially for less educated 

single moms, have produced a growing gap in this indicator of family encouragement for 

children's development. 

Extracurricular activities were initiated in American schools more than a century ago, precisely 

as a way of inculcating what we now call "soft skills" -grit, teamwork, "stick-to-it-iveness"-

and hard evidence confirms that extracurricular participation does have those effects, leading 

to greater success later in life. But privatization of extracurriculars in recent years (as 

exemplified by "pay to play") has increasingly deprived poor kids of these opportunities. 

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•our 

whole 

t.tmlly 

usua:Jfy 

.... 

dinMr 

tos:ether .. 

{As""') 

Draft of May 16, 2017 

GROWING CLASS GAPS IN 

FAMILY DINNERS & EXTRACURRICULARS 

TRENDS IN FAMILY DINNERS by parentaleducalion, 1978-2005 

80% 

75% 

70% 

65% 

60% 

55% 

1975 1985 1995 2005 

95% 

90% 

85% 

80% 

75% 

70% 

65% 

60% 

1970 

PARTICIPATION IN SCHOOLBASED EXTRACURRICULARS 1972-2002 

1980 1990 2000 2010 

• BAormo.re •HSorless -Highest.SESquartile ..,.._lowestSESquartile 

These and many similar scissors graphs trace a growing opportunity gap between kids from 

affluent, educated homes and their poorer counterparts. Over time, these trends will add up to 

diminished rates of upward mobility. 

The contrasts in these stories and charts accurately highlight the growing importance of social 

class differences in America, but that should not blind us to the continuing importance of racial 

disparities. Race and class have long overlapped in America. Most people of color have always 

started several rungs down on the ladder of opportunity, and they do today. But added to 

those longstanding consequences of racism in America, in recent decades purely class 

disparities have grown, affecting poor kids of all races and appearing within each major racial 

category. 

The shriveling of the American Dream of opportunity for all is economically unproductive, 

democratically ominous, and morally unjust. 

America's economic health has always been powered by a healthy middle class of 

productive employees and consumers, and we can't afford to write off one third of our future 

workforce. Economists estimate that our failure to invest in today's poor kids will cost the rest 

of us $5 trillion over the course of their lifetimes (attributable to criminal justice system costs, 

health care expenses, and the opportunity cost of wasting the talents of gifted poor kids). 

Over time, increasing numbers of Americans left completely outside "the system"-

socially isolated, economically frustrated and politically alienated-contribute to political 

inequality and civic alienation, and could even pose challenges to America's democratic 

stability. 3 

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Most important, this opportunity gap is deeply unfair because it violates the core values 

of American meritocracy and opportunity for all. 

As I have emphasized, social capital is not the only factor that has fostered the opportunity gap, 

but it is pervasive in the stories and analysis that I am summarizing. Most fundamentally, this 

set of changes reflects a drastically diminished sense of shared destiny and mutual obligation. 

Two generations ago, when people used the expression "our kids," they meant our 

community's or our nation's children, but now the term has shriveled to refer only to our own 

biological children. That is, at root, a consequence of a decline in bridging social capital. 

America has never thrived with such a narrow vision of the public weal, and we can't let it be 

our future. 

The opportunity gap represents a perfect storm with multiple, interrelated causes, including: 1) 

the collapse of the white working-class nuclear family; 2) the unraveling of the social fabric in 

working-class communities; 3) the rapidly increasing segregation of American society along 

class lines; and 4) increased economic insecurity among the working-class. 

Growing up with two parents is now unusual in the white (as well as nonwhite) working class, 

while two-parent families are normal and becoming more common among the upper middle 

class (both white and nonwhite). Most Americans are unaware that the white working class 

family is today more fragile than the black family was at the time of the famous alarm-sounding 

1965 "Report on the Negro Family" by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 

In the 1960s and 1970s working class schools and neighborhoods had vibrant extracurricular 

offerings and strong social institutions, like the Catholic Church or Scouts or the PolishAmerican society or simply older neighbors. Those institutions, in effect, provided a "social 

safety net" that could help catch and sustain kids experiencing problems at home. Today, that 

array of institutions and the ranks of "assistant moms" have essentially collapsed in working 

class neighborhoods. Moreover, in that era poor kids were often living in mixed or moderate 

income neighborhoods and going to school with more affluent classmates. 

At the same time, kids from the upper third of American families are less likely to experience 

jarring developmental jolts (e.g., a family health problem, parental divorce, parental stress, an 

unwanted pregnancy, obesity) and much more likely than the bottom third to have "air bags" 

that cushion this jolt (e.g., their family hiring a tutor or a counselor, one of the parents taking 

time off from work to get the child back on track, arranging an unpaid internship, or even 

remodeling their house to cope with a special needs child). 

The long economic stagnation for the lower half of the population (ever since the mid-1970s) 

has weakened the ability of working class families to invest time, energy, money, and love in 

their kids. As First lady laura Bush told me and her husband in a White House meeting: 

"George, if you don't know how long you're going to keep your house and your job, you have 

less energy to invest in the kids." Working class families are more tenuously attached to the job 

market, and working class kids are ten times more likely than upper middle class kids to 

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experience periods in which their families have no income; moreover, the working class family 

(prototypically a single-parent family) is far less likely to have savings or friends to buffer these 

economic shocks and support their kids. 

In short, this problem is a quintessential purple problem. Parts of the problem (like the collapse 

of the working class family) one can see more clearly through red conservative lenses, but parts 

of the problem (like the long stagnation of working class wages) one can see more clearly 

through blue progressive lenses. The ideal of equal opportunity has been widely shared across 

partisan and ideological divisions throughout our history. According to the latest polls, 95 

percent of us say that "everyone in America should have equal opportunity to get ahead" -a 

level of consensus that is virtually never reached in contentious contemporary America. So 

closing the opportunity gap offers a chance for us-and probably requires us-to come 

together across our partisan polarization to restore the American Dream. 

What are possible approaches for narrowing the opportunity gap? 

During 2015 my team (the Saguaro Seminar at the Harvard Kennedy School) convened five 

working groups, composed of roughly SO experts in all, who were diverse in their disciplines, 

political orientations, and geographic and demographic backgrounds. The groups considered 

five important realms in which we might narrow the opportunity gap: family structure and 

parenting; early childhood; the K-12 years; community institutions and neighborhoods; and "on 

ramps" for success. 

Concerted progress is possible in other domains, but these domains seemed ones where we 

could most advance the discussion. Two potential areas of interest were left aside for reasons 

of time and expertise. 

1. Successful economic and job development policies in communities are likely to have 

important positive effects on the local opportunity gap, but assessing such economic 

strategies was outside the scope of our expertise. 

2. Though we discussed community colleges at some length, for the most part we halted 

our exploration at the doorstep to four-year post-secondary education, partly because 

we assess that by the time kids enter college, most of the gap has already grown fullsize. To use a different metaphor, examining college tuition and other college policieshowever important in absolute terms-is like assessing the results of a marathon by 

focusing on the last 200 yards of the race. In any event, college costs and college 

policies are outside the scope of our work. 

Here is a tasting menu of promising approaches in each area. 

FAMILY AND PARENTING: We focused on strategies to improve family stability and effective 

parenting that undergirds children's success and yields lifelong advantages. The group 

emphasized the need for both economic changes {e.g., helping low income Americans enter the 

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labor market and making their wages and hours more stable) and cultural changes 

(communicating broadly the importance of relationship stability and the sequence of events 

that predict children's economic success -graduate from high school, hold a full-time job or 

have a partner who does, and only have children if married and older than 21). The group 

recommended strategies to reduce unwanted and unplanned births by developing alternative 

appealing identities for low income girls besides being a young mom and providing better 

access to more effective forms of birth control. The group also recommended technological 

nudges to improve parenting. 

EARLY CHILDHOOD: Ages birth to five (especially the first two years) set the foundation for 

effective later learning and self-regulation and is the most promising period for investments, 

but America underinvests in these early years relative to most developed countries. Our 

working group recommended changes across four domains: parenting, early childhood 

education, economic security, and supports for parents such as paid leave. The working group 

advised high quality home visiting for first-time moms and noted strategies to ensure the 

provision of effective early childhood education. The group recommended changes to reduce 

food insecurity for low income children and provide increased economic stability to their 

parents. 

THE K-12 YEARS, BOTH IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL: Schools and education embody the American 

Dream, but schools today are too often segregated by socioeconomic status and are places of 

unequal rather than equal opportunity. Our working group noted the importance of good 

teaching over physical plant or technology in equalizing opportunity and highlighted strategies 

to improve this teaching. The group advocated supplementing the K-12 curricula through 

extracurricular activities, wraparound student support, tutoring;and a stronger school-to-work 

linkage. The group noted that accountability measures need to expand beyond mere test 

scores. They noted that charters writ large are not a panacea, but useful lessons from 

successful charter schools can be extracted for all schools. 

NEIGHBORHOODS AND COMMUNITIES: Over the last several decades we've witnessed an 

increase in the rich living in rich enclaves and the poor living in poor enclaves. Since adversity 

has become more geographically concentrated, low income children are systematically exposed 

to fewer mentors, fewer economic opportunities, greater violence, and more toxic 

environments. The working group recommended strategies to reduce economic segregation 

through land trusts, more mixed income-housing through housing vouchers plus counseling, 

and economic development that promotes affordability. The group noted that the effects of 

residential segregation can be reduced through anchor institutions like hospitals, schools and 

police, and applauded approaches like workforce development and workforce supports that 

help low-income residents obtain and keep jobs. The group also recommended strategies to 

reconnect disconnected low-income youth through more systematic mentoring and an 

increased role for religious institutions as community partners. 

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"ON RAMPS" FOR SUCCESS: About 1 in 7 young adults (16-24} are both out-of-school and outof-work. Our "on ramps" working group focused on strategies both to enable them to be more 

successful economically and to stem this problem for future cohorts. The group recommended 

a greater linking of the world of work and education (with earlier exposure to work internships 

for all}, and revamping community colleges to make them easier institutions to navigate and 

from which to graduate. The group also recommended strategies to smooth transitions both 

between high school and community college and between community colleges and 4-year 

institutions. The group gave guidance on how to rethink community college "remediation" for 

inadequately prepared high school graduates. 

These five baskets of policy suggestions are interconnected. Relevant reforms of K-12 schools 

cannot be considered in isolation from the starkly contrasting neighborhoods in which rich and 

poor kids live. Early childhood education appears to be most effective when combined with 

parental coaching and home visiting. Improved mentoring must be part of any strategy for 

lowering the dropout rate from community colleges. Few of our participants think there is a 

single magic bullet, so focusing only on any one basket while ignoring the wider web of causes 

and solutions is likely to be ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive. 

Reports like ours are often written by and for policy advisors to national leaders-presidential 

candidates, Congressional leaders, Cabinet officials, and so on-and we hope that national 

leaders will find our report interesting. Our set of white papers, however, was aimed primarily 

at a different audience of grassroots leaders and activists: state and local public officials, 

community foundations, state and local philanthropists, school and health officials, local civic, 

business, religious, and non-profit leaders. We targeted that audience for three related 

reasons. 

First, American federalism is a great strength of our country, since states and localities-

"laboratories of democracy," as Justice Brandeis famously put it-can pursue experimental 

policies and learn from one another. As we shall illustrate momentarily, major social reforms in 

this country have historically typically begun as state and local experiments. When they proved 

successful, such innovations have rapidly diffused horizontally to other states and localities and 

have risen vertically to become embodied in national policy. 

Second, as we have emphasized, solutions to the opportunity gap will need to be holistic and 

interdisciplinary, involving cooperation and coordination among different agencies. That is 

easier to do at the state and local level than in Washington. 

And finally, we live in an age of extreme, maybe even unprecedented political polarization, 

stymieing efforts at addressing public problems in every sphere of life, including the 

opportunity gap. That polarization now extends to states and localities, but seems somewhat 

less intense and paralyzing locally than it is nationally. Local leaders can work in purple. 

The reason that grassroots leaders can be expected to play such a crucial role in narrowing the 

existing opportunity gaps is that they've surmounted such problems before. The period at the 

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end of the 19th century- the Gilded Age- was a period very much like ours today. The Gilded 

Age was a time of high immigration, high political alienation, rapid technological change, and 

concentrated wealth. 

Then, as now, new concentrations of wealth and corporate power raised questions about the 

real meaning of democracy. Then, as now, massive urban concentrations of impoverished 

ethnic minorities posed basic questions of social justice and social stability. Then, as now, the 

comfortable upper-middle class was torn between the seductive attractions of escape and the 

deeper demands of redemptive social solidarity. 

Then, as now, new forms of commerce, a restructured workplace, and a new spatial 

organization of human settlement threatened older forms of solidarity. Then, as now, waves of 

immigration changed the complexion of America and seemed to imperil the unum in our 

pluribus. Then, as now, materialism, political cynicism, and a penchant for spectatorship rather 

than action seemed to thwart idealistic reformism. Then, as now, older strands of social 

solidarity were being abraded-even destroyed-by technological and economic and social 

change. Then, as now, the dominant public philosophy (then termed "social Darwinism") 

lauded selfish-centeredness as the prime virtue. Then as now, America had become more of an 

"I" society and less of a "we" society. Serious observers understood that the path from the past 

could not be retraced, but few saw clearly the path to a better future. 

Enter some intrepid social reformers. They had national spokespeople like Teddy Roosevelt 

and Jane Addams, but most of the creative innovators worked at the state and local level. 

Instead of embracing the trend toward ideological individualism, reformers saw the problems 

as societal flaws, not individual failings. Growing numbers of Americans began to recognize the 

problem, and gradually many began to seek solutions. Among the harbingers of change was a 

book by a Danish-American journalist How the Other Half Lives. As a photojournalist, Jacob Riis 

set out to describe the plight of poor tenement dwellers in the slums of the Lower East Side of 

Manhattan, aiming his words at the affluent readers in the Silk Stocking district on the Upper 

East Side. Enough of his readers were moved by this desecration of the American Dream that 

political reformers in both parties {TR chief among them) moved to institute practical 

improvements, beginning with clean water and clean streets. As this movement spread, it 

crossed party lines and crossed the continent. 

In the Progressive Era, social entrepreneurs often experimented with home-grown ideas, such 

as social and fraternal organizations (Rotary, the Moose, Kiwanis) or extracurricular activities 

like high school band and football (as alluded to earlier). They also imported innovative ideas 

from abroad: e.g., kindergartens from Germany; settlement houses and the Boy Scouts from 

England. 

Progressive Era innovation was galvanized by a conscious practitioner-academic dialogue. 

Dialogues among business and community leaders, academics, and political officials in places 

like Toledo and Galveston led to some of the most successful and enduring innovations. 

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Chicago's Hull House, founded by Jane Addams, fostered dialogue between the worlds she 

seamlessly spanned: the Hull House community and leading academics at University of Chicago. 

These conversations spread powerful, successful ideas and won national attention. For 

example, Addams and Florence Kelley partnered with academics on the 1909 White House 

Conference on Children which led to the U.S. Children's Bureau and to urban reform policies. 

The Progressive Era included many reforms (not all of them effective or even beneficent)-too 

many to list here. But the single most important-or at least the most instructive for our 

times-was aimed at the opportunity gap of that era. 

The High School was invented by American reformers around 1910, beginning in small towns in 

the Heartland. Until that time, nowhere in the world had any community decided that all kids 

in town would get-just because they were kids in town-a free, comprehensive, four-year 

secondary education. Prior to that, only those families who could afford it obtained secondary 

education. But beginning in small towns in the Midwest and spreading out from there, a 

grassroots "High School movement" demanded that all children, regardless of their family 

background, have the opportunity to earn a secondary education. 

This was a hard sell. Reformers had to convince the wealthier folks in town (whose kids likely 

had already received a private secondary education) that they should pay higher taxes so that 

all the other kids in town could get a free secondary education. Slowly but surely, citizens in 

these towns and then in towns and cities across America agreed to invest in other people's 

children. And it turned out to be the best public policy decision America has ever made. 

That decision- to make sure everyone in America had a chance to get a free secondary 

education- meant our workforce became the best trained in the world. That huge boost in 

productivity accounted for most of America's economic growth in the twentieth century. At 

the same time, that decision also leveled the playing field for all kids across America, raising 

social mobility for at least half a century. This grassroots-born innovation combined two values 

that economists sometimes tell us are incompatible-it increased both efficiency (improving 

national productivity for all) and equity (helping the less well-off even more). It renewed the 

American promise from the bottom up. 

Our challenge now is to be as creative and experimental as the people who dreamed up the 

idea of free secondary education and to be as convincing to our fellow citizens of the need to 

make change in our society. In the Progressive Era, breakthrough ideas typically did not come 

from Washington. There was a national conversation happening about these larger issues of 

opportunity and education, but the role of the national conversation was to give oxygen to local 

reformers across the U.S. and thus to breathe life into the reforms that began to equalize 

opportunity in America. 

Our working groups aimed mostly to confine our recommendations to interventions for which 

there is good evidence of effectiveness. But we note that free high schools in America were 

never subjected to rigorous quantitative evaluation before they were introduced, so our list of 

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potential approaches should not limit the imaginations and creativity of local social 

entrepreneurs committed to addressing this growing opportunity gap. 

We don't know for sure what the equivalent innovation for the 21st century will be-universal 

early childhood education, or universal college (2-year or 4-year), or some other bold 

innovation as yet unimagined. But our set of policy approaches is designed to help stimulate an 

intense period of civic renewal and policy experimentation that will begin to narrow the 

opportunity gap that threatens America today. We recognize the value of learning lessons from 

abroad, but our aspiration is not be make America Sweden, but to do in today's America what 

Americans have done before.• 

Example 2: How Bowling Alone leads to Aging Alone: Social Capital in the Later Years of Ufe 

Providing care for aging Americans is a major (and growing) nationwide problem. One widely 

recognized reason is simply the massive number of baby boomers who are now retiring, but 

one unrecognized part of the problem is that boomers (from the generation that brought us 

Bowling Alone) will almost certainly require substantially more paid eldercare per person than 

their parents' generation. Long-term generational differences in social capital turn out to have 

massive implications for policy (public and private) in this domain. 

Although many aging Americans spend their later years in some form of paid/institutionalized 

care (e.g. nursing homes and home healthcare aides), many more receive unpaid, informal care 

from family, friends, neighbors, and civic organizations (i.e. social capital). The best estimate 

from recent decades is that roughly three quarters of all care for Americans over 65 is provided 

through such unpaid, informal channels.' 

However, current estimates of the amount of informal care that will be required in the next 20 

years (that is, for the boomer or "Bowling Alone" generation) are based almost exclusively on 

our experience with eldercare over the previous three-four decades, when the elderly were in 

fact the boomers' parents, a generation with historically high levels of social capital. 6 

Crucially, however, the boomer generation is entering their sunset years with much less social 

capital than their parents had at the same age. Therefore, our current estimates substantially 

underestimate the amount of paid/institutional care that will be required in the next 20 years. 

Consider in turn each source of informal social support for aging Americans. 

• Spouses: The boomers are the generation that experienced the divorce epidemic 

beginning in the 1970s, whereas their parents were members of one of the most stably 

married cohorts in recent history. Thus, roughly 12 percent fewer of the mid-boomer 

birth cohort of 1955 will be living with spouses when they reach age 65 than was true of 

the birth cohort of 1930 (roughly speaking, the boomers' parents) when they reached 

65. 7 

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• Children: Boomers had many fewer children than their parents (who were, after all, the 

parents of the baby boom). Assuming similar mid life mortality rates among those 

children, the birth cohort of 1955 will reach retirement age with roughly 36% fewer 

children than the birth cohort of 1930 had. 8 

Close friends: the birth cohort of 195D--59 had an average of 2.1 close friends in 2004, 

when they were about SO, compared to 3.0 close friends for the birth cohort of 193D--39 

in 1985, when they were about 50, i.e., about 30% fewer close friends.• 

Community involvement: On measures like dinner parties, club meetings, and churchgoing the boomers reported about roughly 40% fewer community ties when they were 

in their 40s than their parents had reported when they were in their 40s. 10 

Thus, in round numbers the boomers are entering retirement with one third less social support 

than their parents had at the same stage of life. This is the history that lies behind recent 

headlines like "How an Epidemic of Loneliness is Killing the Men We Love" and "Loneliness 

among Seniors." 11 The generation that "bowled alone" will now "age alone." 

Social isolation is widely recognized as a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality, especially 

among the elderly. What is seldom recognized is that the trend toward increasing social 

isolation among boomers, compared to their parents, will inevitably impair their health and 

reduce the degree to which the elderly over the next two decades will be able to rely on 

informal care as they age. Conversely, the burden on paid, institutionalized care will rise sharply 

above current expectations, not simply because there are more boomers" (for which current 

projections already account), but because proportionally more of them will need paid, 

institutionalized care (for which current projections do not account). As illustrated in the set of 

charts below, over the coming decades this factor alone will mean that paid eldercare per 

boomer will, on average, have to double, as compared to their parents. 

This analysis does not show how that massive increase in formal, paid eldercare will be paid 

for-through public or private mechanisms or in some other way-and in any event I would not 

want to stake my reputation on the precise decimal points in these calculations."·14 But this 

issue illustrates that ignoring trends in social capital can blind us to massively important public 

policy issues. One could imagine more "progressive" approaches or more "conservative" 

approaches to the problem, or a combination of both, but the problem itself is not going to 

vanish. 

This threat to our national accounts, financial as well as moral, stems directly from the fact that 

40-50 years ago younger Americans began bowling alone. Social capital is an underappreciated 

dimension of this issue (as well as of the opportunity gap) for national decision-makers. 

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How Aging Alone may affect the costs of eldercare 

Total elderly American$ needing care in 201o-11 

D lrr201(1-1J,Amerirans65arrd 

OV!!rtaro/ed40.1mi111Mpeop/11!, 

ofwhvm29'K>(11.Smil/!cm} 

net~dedcare. 

Total elde~y Americans needing care In 2030 

EB Amerkam65ando~rare 

prcjrt:tedtotoral71mi/1Jon 

people,ojw/JamatleastOI'!e 

quarter(18mi/lion}are 

pro/fttedto need care. 

How that care can be provided ln 2030 

As the "Bow/JngAfot~e" 

gerte!Q(ion, 6oomen ho~ 1/3 

lesssoclalsupportthcmthelr 

pare/lts,andtnuswi/1/ikely 

enjoy l/3 Wn lflionnal elder 

caJYthancurrentlyprofected. 

How that care was provided In 201o-11 

tn 20lO.U, 1~ of oR 

ekkrtare wus pDid C11J"e, whilt. 

7l'Jf. Wilt pro -,fried informally. 

Current projections of how that care wfll be provided In 2030 

CUrrent project/Oils auume that 

retired bfJomers wlll enjoy as 

much fn/ormal {unpaid) ca~ as 

their parents' generation. 

How that care witt have to be provided in 2030 

To rep/Gee the missing inform of. 

unpaid eldrrcare will n!quire 

paid elder care roughl)o to 

double from current projections. 

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1 This section is based on https://www.hks.harvard.edu/programs/saguaro/about-social-capital/faqs, as well as a 

number of my publications over the quarter century, including Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in 

Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Nanetti; Bowling 

Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000); Democracies in Flux: 

The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Better 

Together: Restoring the American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003) with Lewis Feldstein and Don 

Cohen; and American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010) with David E. 

Campbell. Second edition with new Epilogue, 2011. 

2 A landmark overview of these trends is Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 196G--2010. 

(New York: Crown, 2012). 3 "An inert and atomized mass of alienated and estranged citizens, disconnected from social institutions, might 

under normal circumstances pose only a minimal threat to political stability, with any menace muted by the 

masses' very apathy. Government under such circumstances might not be very democratic, but at least it would be 

stable. But under severe economic or international pressures-such as the pressures that overwhelmed Europe 

and America in the 1930s-that "inert" mass might suddenly prove highly volatile and open to manipulation by 

anti-democratic demagogues at the ideological extremes." Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in 

Crisis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 201S). 

4 For more information on the working group process, visit www.theopportunitygap.com. A coalition of 

community foundations-the Community Foundation Opportunity Network-is currently undertaking a 

nationwide array of, locally-based, evidence-based projects to test and implement the strategies outlined in the 

Closing the Opportunity Gap report. For more on that initiative, see https://www.theopportunitygap.com/aboutus/. 

5 The 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study found that, of the 38.2 million Americans over age 65, 2.9 

percent live in a nursing home. The remaining 71.3 percent did not [yet] require living assistance. Of the 2S.8 

percent who required assistance with self-care, mobility, and/or household activities but did not live in a nursing 

home, 9S percent received unpaid help, while 34.S percent received paid help. Of the mean 169.7 hours of help 

each person received monthly, 143.8 hours or 8S percent were unpaid. Vicki Freedman and Brenda Spillman, 

"Disability and Care Needs Among Older Americans," Milbank Quarterly 92, no. 3 (2014): S09-41. If we assume 

that all care provided in nursing homes is paid, then {[.029 x 1.00] + [.2S8 x 0.1S])/.287 = 23.S% of all care was paid 

care, while 76.S% is provided informally. 

6 Bowling Alone, chapter 14. 

7 In the 1990 Census, 73% of 60-year-olds were living with their spouse.ln the 201S American Community Survey, 

that figure had fallen to 64%, a decline of 12% {9 percentage points). Own analysis of Census and ACS data from 

IPUMS. 

'In 1980, women born in 1930 (thus then SO years old) had had an average of living 3.1 children.ln 200S, women 

born in 19SS had had an average of 1.98 living children. CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System, "Table 2. 

Cumulative birth rates, by live-birth order, exact age, and race of women in each cohort from 1911 through 1991: 

United States, 1961-2006," https:/ /www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/cohort_fertility_tables.htm. 9 Our analysis of General Social Survey data from 198S and 2004. For a detailed methodological debate about 

these data, see Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew E. Brashears, "Social Isolation in America: 

Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades," American Sociological Review 71 (Jun., 2006), pp. 3S3-

37S; Claude S. Fischer, "The 2004 GSS Finding of Shrunken Social Networks: An Artifact?" American Sociological 

Review 74 (August, 2009}: 6S7-69; and Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew E. Brashears, "Reply to 

Fischer: Models and Marginals: Using Survey Evidence to Study Social Networks," American Sociological Review 74, 

(Aug., 2009): 670-681. 

10 Using DDB Lifestyle data, as analyzed in Bowling Alone, we compared the 199S-98 behavior of the cohort born 

in 19SO-S9 with the 197S-78 behavior of the cohort born 1930-39. That comparison approximates the behavior of 

the boomer generation and their parents' generation when each cohort was in their 40s. The older cohort had 

attended 6.8 dinner parties in the previous 12 months, compared with 3.8 for the younger cohort, a decline of 4S 

percent. The older cohort attended 11.1 club meetings in the previous 12 months, compared with S.1 for the 

18 
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Draft of May 16, 2017 

younger cohort, a decline of 54 percent. The older cohort attended church or another place of worship 27.3 times 

in the previous 12 months, compared with 19.7 for the younger cohort, a decline of 28 percent. 11 Social isolation is a risk factor for several adverse health outcomes, including death and elements of functional 

decline, including stair climbing, upper extremity tasks, daily living activities, and other mobility functions. In older 

people, the effect is independent from the emotional experience of loneliness and appears to be caused by 

isolation itself, perhaps because of the lack of social support to prompt medical attention to an acute condition or 

because of biological consequences from lack of social engagement. In addition to changes in health-related 

behavior, greater loneliness is also linked to more stress exposure, greater feelings of helplessness, more severe 

physiological responses to stress, and lower quality of sleep. Isolation may be particularly problematic for older 

people because they face new challenges unique to their age, such as life transitions, declining health, and new 

disabilities. Conversely, social connectedness can provide access to material resources1 such as information; 

promote healthy behaviors; and discourage risky activities such as smoking. Among many other sources, see Carla 

M. Perissinotto, Irena Stijacic Cenzer, and Kenneth E. Covinsky, "Loneliness in Older Persons: A Predictor of 

Functional Decline and Death," Archives of Internal Medicine 172, no.l4 (July 23, 2012): 1078-84, 

doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.1993; Andrew Steptoe et al., "Social Isolation, Loneliness, and All-Cause 

Mortality in Older Men and Women," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 15 (Aprll9, 2013): 

5799, doi:10.1073/pnas.1219686110; John T. Cacioppo, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need/or Social 

Connection, 1st ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 99-108; Erin York Cornwell and Linda J. Waite, "Social 

Disconnectedness, Perceived Isolation, and Health among Older Adults," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 50, 

no. 1 (2009): 31-48. 

"In 2010, 40.2 million Americans were aged 65 or older, but that number is forecast to be 72.1 million in 2030, an 

increase of about 79 percent. Administration on Aging, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "Projected 

Future Growth of the Older Population," September 2014, available at 

https:/ /aoa. acl.gov I Aging_ Statistics/tutu re _growth/tutu re _growth. aspx. 13 An important caveat: Although I have carefully tried to establish the basis for my calculations, I report here 

research in progress which has not yet been subjected to formal peer review. Much of this work was done in 

collaboration with Chaz Kelsh, a graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School, but responsibility for any errors 

rests entirely with me. 14 In 2004, about 46 percent of Americans' nursing home expenses were paid for by Medicaid. Georgetown 

University Long-Term Care Financing Project, "National Spending for Long-Term Care" fact sheet, January 2007, 

available at https:/ /hpi.georgetown.edu/ltc/papers.html. 

19 
57 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES MURRAY, W. H. BRADY SCHOLAR, AMERICAN

ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Members of the Committee have before them the excellent report, ‘‘What We Do 

Together,’’ from the Social Capital Project, and the presence of Robert Putnam, who 

knows more about American social capital than anyone in the world. So what am 

I supposed to add? 

I’ve decided to emphasize how complicated are the effects of the deterioration of 

social capital on human behavior. Statistics on the decline of marriage and of male 

labor force participation are important. But they tend to make the task of solving 

those problems sound too straightforward. Fewer people are getting married? Maybe 

that can be fixed, or at least ameliorated, by higher working-class wages so that 

people can more easily afford to get married. Males aren’t in the labor force? We 

need more and better job opportunities. 

I am not saying such solutions would have no good effects. But the actual problems reach deeply into the ways that humans are socialized into institutions like 

marriage and the labor force. A good way to get a grip on those actual problems 

is Prof. Putnam’s book, ‘‘Our Kids.’’ The heart of that book consists of five accounts 

of real people and real families in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Orange County California, 

Big Bend Oregon, and Port Clinton Ohio. Those stories provide ammunition for Bernie Sanders and Charles Murray alike. We hear the voices of the unemployed whose 

manufacturing jobs were exported abroad—a real problem—and the voices of people 

who quit good jobs because they didn’t feel like working or who got fired because 

they showed up late, shirked their tasks, and got in fights with coworkers—another 

real problem. We hear stories of unmarried low-income parents who were fiercely 

devoted to their kids and of other parents who created children casually and walked 

away from them casually. 

But if I had to pick one theme threaded throughout all of these superbly told stories, it is the many ways in which people behaved impulsively—throwing away real 

opportunities—and unrealistically, possessing great ambitions but oblivious to the 

steps required to get from point A to point B to point C to point D in life. The same 

theme appears in steroids in J.D. Vance’s best-selling memoir, ‘‘Hillbilly Elegy.’’ He 

describes an America that is still the land of opportunity; we know it is, because 

his parents and extended family squandered a prodigious number of opportunities. 

You read Vance’s account and keep saying to yourself, ‘‘Why are they behaving so 

self-destructively?’’ 

It comes down to the age-old problem of getting people, especially young people, 

not to do things that are attractive in the short term but disastrous in the long term 

and, conversely, to do things that aren’t fun right now but that will open up rewards 

later in life. The problem is not confined to any socioeconomic class. The mental disorder known as adolescence afflicts rich and poor alike. And adolescence can extend 

a long time after people have left their teens. The most common way that the fortunate among us manage to get our priorities straight—or at least not irretrievably 

screw them up—is by being cocooned in the institutions that are the primary resources for generating social capital: a family consisting of married parents and active membership in a faith tradition. 

I didn’t choose my phrasing lightly. I am not implying that single parents are incapable of filling this function—millions of them are striving heroically to do so— 

nor that children cannot grow up successfully if they don’t go to church. With regard 

to families, I am making an empirical statement: As a matter of statistical tendencies, biological children of married parents do much better on a wide variety of 

important life outcomes than children growing up in any other family structure, 

even after controlling for income, parental education, and ethnicity. With regard to 

religion, I am making an assertion about a resource that can lead people, adolescents and adults alike, to do the right thing even when the enticements to do the 

wrong thing are strong: a belief that God commands them to do the right thing. I 

am also invoking religion as a community of faith—a phrase that I borrow from, 

guess who, Robert Putnam. For its active members, a church is far more than a 

place that they go to worship once a week. It is a form of community that socializes 

the children growing up in it in all sorts of informal ways, just as a family socializes 

children. 

This is not a preface to a set of policy recommendations. I have none. Rather, I 

would argue that it is not a matter of ideology but empiricism to conclude that unless the traditional family and traditional communities of faith make a comeback, 

the declines in social capital that are already causing so much deterioration in our 

civic culture will continue and the problems will worsen. The solutions are unlikely 

to be political but cultural. We need a cultural Great Awakening akin to past reliLAP51NQ082 with DISTILLER

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gious Great Awakenings. How to bring about that needed cultural great awakening 

is a question above my pay grade. 

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"The State of Social Capital in America Today" 

Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of tbe United States Congress 

May 17,2017 

Yuval Levin 

The Ethics and Public Policy Center 

and National Affairs 

Chainnan Tiberi, Ranking Member Heinrich, Vice Chainnan Lee, and members of the 

committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

It is very encouraging to see the Joint Economic Committee turn its attention to the question of 

social capital. Too often in our policy debates, we incline to separate the purely economic from 

the social and interpersonal facets of the challenges Americans confront, and by doing that we 

fail to understand any of these challenges very well. 

Considering social capital is a particularly constructive way to better understand obstacles to 

mobility and opportunity in America because it offers us the promise of overcoming the familiar 

partisan division between focusing on money and focusing on culture. 

The fact is that our country has become deeply divided and fragmented in ways that create some 

particularly pernicious and complicated obstacles for Americans trying to rise out of poverty. 

And our political system has struggled to pin the blame for this phenomenon somewhere without 

fully acknowledging its character. The Left tends to see economic inequality as the root of all 

other fonns of social fracturing, and argues therefore that a policy of more aggressive 

redistribution would not only help ease income inequality but also mitigate the political power of 

the wealthy, strengthen poor communities and families, and create more opportunities for all. An 

emphasis on cultural problems like family breakdown, many progressives now suggest, is a 

distraction from these real causes-if not an attempt to blame the victims and opportunistically 

advance an oppressive cultural agenda that can only further burden the most disadvantaged. 

The Right sees cultural disintegration-marked especially by the breakdown of family and 

community-as the source of the persistence of entrenched poverty in America. Conservatives 

therefore argue that social policy must focus on family and community, and worry that the Left's 

misguided efforts to address entrenched poverty through greater economic redistribution can 

only make things worse by hampering the economy, distorting the personal choices of the 

disadvantaged witb perverse incentives, and exacerbating dependency. 

In an effort to avoid the rather obvious conclusion that cultural and economic factors are 

inseparable, progressives and conservatives thus tend to exaggerate the implications of their 

favored explanations. They predict that either growing inequality or increasing family and 

cultural breakdown, respectively, will tum out to be unsustainable, and so lead to a cataclysm, or 

a rip in the social fabric that will force a great reckoning. 

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But things are likely both better and worse than that: Both growing inequality and increasing 

social breakdown may well be sustainable, but may not be compatible with human flourishing. 

We are not headed for a cataclysm, but we are stuck in a rut, and getting out of it will require 

understanding it. No moment of change will be forced upon us, so if we are to revive the fortunes 

ofthe least among us, we will need to act. 

Our debates about whether culture or economics ultimately matters most keep us from seeing 

what kind of action might be plausible. These debates often implicitly revolve around the 

question of whether we should attempt a reversal of the significant liberalization of the past half 

century and more in the economic sphere (as the Left would prefer) or the social sphere (as the 

Right would like), when the fact is that we stand little chance of any wholesale reversal in either 

realm. This leaves us with a politics of dual denial: In any given policy debate, one party (be it 

Republicans on cultural matters or Democrats in economics) denies the fact that the 

liberalization of our society's way of life is a dominant and essentially irreversible fact about 

contemporary America while the other party denies that this fact entails some very significant 

problems. 

To see that the challenges we face are in many respects the opposite side of the coin of the 

advantages we possess is not easy for anyone in our politics. We all want to believe we can have 

the good without the bad-progress without a price. And not only that, we also tend to believe 

this is possible because we tend to believe it has happened in our country before. Our political 

culture now lives under the sway of an intense nostalgia for a period we believe embodied this 

extraordinary possibility: the roughly two decades that followed the end of the Second World 

War. 1 

The America that our exhausted, wistful now politics misses so much, the nation as it first 

emerged from the Great Depression and World War II and gradually evolved from there, was 

exceptionally unified and cohesive. It had at first an extraordinary confidence in large 

institutions--big government, big labor, and big business that would work together to meet the 

nation's needs. That confidence is just stunning, from our vantage point. 

America's economic life in that period was highly regulated and consolidated, as depression-era 

and wartime controls were only slowly loosened. But in the wake of a war in which most of its 

competitors had burned each other's economies to the ground, America utterly dominated the 

world economy, offering economic opportunity to workers of all kinds-high skill and mid-skill 

and low skill. 

America's cultural life at midcentury was no less consolidated. It was dominated by a broad 

traditionalist moral consensus. Religious attendance was at a peak, families were strong, birth 

rates were high, divorce rates were low. So inequality and family breakdown were both 

contained in that era; opportunity and cultural cohesion were both strong. At least for whites in 

America, which is no small caveat of course, that time really was exceptional. 

1 The discussion that follows draws upon my 2016 book, The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social 

Contract in the Age of Individualism (Basic Books). 

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But almost immediately after the war, that consolidated nation began a long process of 

unwinding and fragmenting. Over the subsequent decades, the culture liberalized and diversified, 

as struggles against racism and sexism coincided with a massive increase in immigration. 

Meanwhile, some key parts of the economy were deregulated to keep up with rising competitors, 

and our labor market was forced by globalizing pressures to specialize in higher-skill work that 

has diminished opportunities for Americans with lower levels of education. And in politics, an 

exceptional mid-century elite consensus on some key issues gave way by the 70s to renewed 

divisions that got sharper and sharper. 

In one arena after another, America in the immediate postwar years was a model of consolidation 

and consensus, but through the following decades that consensus fractured. By the end of the 

20th century, this fracturing of consensus grew from diffusion into polarization-of political 

views, economic opportunities, incomes, family patterns, and ways of life. We have grown less 

conformist but more fragmented; more diverse but less unified; more dynamic but less secure. 

All of this has meant many gains for America: in national prosperity, in personal liberty, in 

cultural diversity, in technological progress, in social justice, and in options and choices in every 

realm of life. But over time it has also meant a loss of faith in institutions, a loss of social order 

and structure, a loss of national cohesion, a loss of security and stability for many workers, and a 

loss of cultural consensus. Those losses have piled up in ways that now often seem to overwhelm 

the gains, and have made our 21st century politics distinctly backward-looking and morose. 

Conservatives and liberals have emphasized different facets ofthese changes. Liberals treasure 

the social liberation and the growing cultural diversity of the past half century but lament the 

economic dislocation, the loss of social solidarity, and the rise in inequality. Conservatives 

celebrate the economic liberalization and dynamism but lament the social instability, moral 

disorder, cultural breakdown, and weakening of fundamental institutions and traditions. 

But these changes are all tied together. The liberalization that the left celebrates often is the 

fragmentation the right laments, and vice versa. That set of forces-liberalizing, fragmenting, 

diversifying, fracturing-have defined our country's past half century both for good and for bad. 

In very broad terms, the first half of the 20th century, up through World War II, was an age of 

growing consolidation and cohesion in American life-as our economy industrialized, 

government grew more centralized, the culture became more aggregated through mass media, 

and national identity and cohesion were often valued above individuality and diversity. In those 

years, a great many ofthe most powerful forces in American life were pushing each American to 

become more like everyone else. And the nation that emerged from World War II was therefore 

highly, profoundly, exceptionally cohesive. 

The second half of the 20th century (and these opening decades of the 21st century too) then 

marked ·an age of growing deconsolidation and decentralization-as the culture became 

increasingly variegated and diverse, the economy gradually diversified and in some respects 

deregulated, and individualism and personal identity came to be held up above conformity and 

national unity. In these years, a great many of the most powerful forces in American life have 

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been pushing each American to become not more like everyone else but more like himself or 

herself. 

Across a wide range of different facets of our national life, the past century has therefore seen a 

pattern of drawing together and then pulling apart. American society became intensely 

consolidated and cohesive as it modernized through the middle ofthe 20th century, and then 

more diverse and diffuse. 

There are many ways we might illustrate this pattern, but perhaps three distinct representations 

will suffice to help us see its broad outlines. In the social arena, we would want some measure of 

the diversity of our society as it has changed over time. The percentage of Americans born 

abroad is one plausible metric on that front, and as tracked by the Census Bureau over the past 

century or so it reveals a pattern of dramatic change: 

., 

.. 

16 

14 

Foreign-Born U.S. Residents, 1910-2010 

(as a percentage of population) 

~ 12 +-------~~--------------------------·----------~~ .. 

c 10 ] 

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 

In the political arena, there is probably no similarly convenient metric, but a measure of 

polarization will provide one gauge of unity and disparity in our democracy. Examining party 

loyalty in congressional roll-call votes over more than a century, political scientists Nolan 

McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal crafted an ingenious index that quantifies party 

polarization in Congress, and the picture it provides gestures toward a similar pattern. 

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0.9 

~ 

~ 0.8 

"' 0 '! 0.7 

] 0.6 

~ 

~ 0.5 

: 0.4 

0.3 

Party Polarization in Congress, 1910-2010 

1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 

In the economic arena, the most commonly used measure of polarization and cohesion is income 

inequality. Debates have long raged about exactly what figures best represent the relevant facts 

about inequality, but a measure ofthe proportion of all income earned by the top I percent of 

earners has been commonly used to stand in for overall trends. Economists Thomas Piketty and 

Emanuel Saez have used income-tax data to track that percentage over the past century, and the 

pattern they discern looks like this: 

Income Share of Top 1%, 1913-2010 

25 

~ .... 

g22 +-------~~------------------------------~~44-

> 

.<1 

1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 

Source: Picketty and Saez, "Income Inequality 1n the United States" (updated by the authors) 

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In all three cases, and many others that have followed a similar trajectory, what we see are very 

significant changes, not slight ups and downs. They tell a tale of intense consolidation followed 

by intense diffusion. 

This pattern shows us that mid-century America straddled two broad trends, which surely 

contributed to its exceptional character. It experienced the liberalization of a consolidated 

society. Many Americans in that time could therefore take for granted some of the benefits of 

consolidation (like relatively stable families and communities, confidence in institutions, a sense 

of national purpose, modest inequality, a broad moral consensus, and robust cultural cohesion) 

while actively combatting some of its least attractive downsides (like institutional racism, 

sexism, overbearing cultural conformity, and a dearth of economic freedom). Combined with 

America's unique global economic position following the Second World War, this made for a 

period of unprecedented prosperity and confidence. 

But it was an inherently unstable and unsustainable combination of circumstances. The 

liberalization that was so important to the character of postwar America was bound to 

undermine-indeed, was intended to undermine-the consolidation that played a no less 

important part in forming that unusual moment. Over time, therefore, the change became the 

context, and Americans could no longer take stability, cohesion, and self-confidence for granted 

as a counterforce to their growing individualism and dynamism. 

The powerful nostalgia for the 1950s and early 60s that so dominates our politics is, in essence, a 

longing for a safe and stable backdrop for various forms of liberalization-be it toward a culture 

of expressive individualism or toward market economics. But Americans have plainly valued 

these forms of liberalization more than we valued the backdrop, and it is folly now to wish we 

could recapture the very circumstances that America has been systematically demolishing for six 

decades and more just so we could more comfortably engage in the very same demolition. 

That process of liberalization has now done its work, and our society is its result. We are a highly 

individualistic, diverse, fragmented society--economically, politically, and culturally. And none 

of that is about to be undone. So we will have to solve our problems as such a society. Both our 

strengths and our weaknesses are functions of this path we have traveled together, and we will 

now have to draw on those strengths to address those weaknesses. 

That last part is what we find so hard to accept. Some of the most serious problems we face are 

not just obstacles to our pursuit of our society's highest hopes but also consequences of that 

pursuit. In liberating many individuals from oppressive social constraints, we have also 

unmoored and estranged many from families, communities, work, and faith. In enabling a 

profusion of options and choices in every part of life to meet our particular needs and wants, we 

have also unraveled the established institutions of an earlier era, and so unraveled the public's 

broader faith in institutions of all kinds. In loosening the reins of cultural conformity and national 

identity and opening ourselves to an immense diversity of cultures, we have weakened the roots 

of mutual trust. In unleashing markets to meet the needs and wants of consumers, we have freed 

them also to treat workers as dispensable and interchangeable. In pursuing meritocracy, we have 

magnified inequality. In looking for a more personalized, representative politics we have 

propelled polarization. In seeking to treat every person equally and individually rather than 

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forcing all to conform, we have accentuated and concentrated the differences between the top 

and bottom in our society, and hollowed out the middle. 

In all ofthese ways and more, as patterns of diffusion evolve into patterns of bifurcated 

concentration--of a top and a bcttom separated by a great chasm-we have done more than 

change the structures of institutions and relationships. We have altered the shapes of lives and 

souls. We have set loose a scourge ofloneliness and isolation that we are still afraid to 

acknowledge as the distinct social dysfunction of our age of individualism, just as a crushing 

conformity was the characteristic scourge of an era of cohesion and national unity. 

And yet, for all that, this is not an indictment of our time. We could surely make the case that the 

benefits of all of this in personal freedom, wealth, justice, and happiness have been worth the 

costs on the whole. But that does not release us from the obligation to confront the costs, and to 

do what we can to address them. 

So what can we do? lfwe do not want to give up the gains our country has made but we do want 

to mitigate somehow the price we have paid for those gains, what options might we have? This is 

where social capital becomes essential, and why it is so important to take it up today. Social 

capital is what allows people to make the most of opportunities, to endure through challenging 

times, and to thrive amid complexity and change. Social capital describes the thick of our 

common life-the networks of people and institutions that compose the substance of our society 

and enable it to function. 

Without robust social capital, the material benefits provided by the welfare state could never be 

enough to enable disadvantaged Americans to rise. Without robust social capital, no amount of 

moralizing about discipline and responsibility could make a difference in the lives of broken 

families and communities. Social capital is what makes it possible for help to help. 

And the liberalization of our society-both moral and economic-has undermined our capacity 

to sustain and replenish social capital. That liberalization has advanced under a banner of 

individualism, seeking to liberate each of us from constricting moral constraints and from 

oppressive regulation but in the process often also unmooring us from relationships of mutual 

obligation. And as it has advanced, it has also robbed us of mutual trust, which is an essential 

ingredient in the development and retention of social capital. 

Social capital is built up slowly and exhausted slowly. It is built by long, arduous work 

constructing relationships, establishing institutions, cultivating norms, shaping expectations, and 

developing mutual trust. Decline is often slow as well. We can burn this capital for a long time 

while taking it for granted. But we have lived through a very long decline in social capital in 

recent decades, and its effects are being visited upon us now-and especially upon the most 

vulnerable among us. 

The steps we incline instinctively to take in response can make the problem worse. The 

expansion of welfare programs that substitute for thick social networks with a check and the 

acceleration of efforts to liberate the economy from socially-imposed restraints for the sake of 

greater growth that might help everyone both tend to exacerbate the pattern by which the 

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mediating layers of our national life are emptied out. Those layers, between the individual and 

the national state, are where social capital is built up and put to use. And a replenishment of 

social capital, a recovery of the capacity to make use of opportunities and to endure setbacks, 

will require a revitalization of those middle spaces. 

This is a cause toward which our national politics is not now naturally disposed. Instead, we 

incline to a politics that answers the problems created by an excessive individualism by further 

empowering the national government. It is important to see that this inclination is likely a 

symptom ofthe problem we are in need of solving. 

Radical individualism involves the corrosion of people's sense of themselves as defined by a 

variety of strong affiliations and unchosen bonds and its replacement by a sense that all 

connections are matters of individual choice and preference. It breaks up clusters of people into 

isolated units. Politically, such individualism tends to weaken mediating power centers that stand 

between the individual and the nation as a whole-from families to local communities (including 

local governments), schools, religious institutions, fraternal bodies, civil-society organizations, 

labor groups, and the small and medium-sized businesses that comprise much of the private 

economy. In their place, it strengthens individuals on the one hand and a central government on 

the other, since such a government is most able to treat individuals equally by treating them all 

impersonally. For this reason, a hyper-individualist culture is likely to be governed by a hypercentralized government, and each is likely to exacerbate the worst inclinations of the other. 

Some of the most distinctive problems of our era-the detachment from family, work, faith, and 

community, and the persistent patterns of bifurcated concentration throughout the American 

experience-are in important respects functions of a view of society as consisting only of 

individuals and a state, and are particularly difficult for a nation that often understands itself that 

way to address. That view of society after all itself advances precisely a form of bifurcated 

concentration, seeking to empower the individual and the central government and disempower 

everything in between. 

The problems we confront therefore call for solutions that somehow reinvigorate the middle 

layers of society, and resuscitate our mediating institutions. Those institutions may be the ones 

most capable of addressing the characteristic problems of our diffusing society-and the 

isolation and loneliness that are such prominent symptoms of so many of those problemswithout requiring the kind of wholesale national reconsolidation andre-centralization that simply 

aren't plausible now. They might better allow us to pursue diversity without atomism, profusion 

without isolation, and a great variety of ways of life without estrangement from the sources of 

human flourishing. 

This would seem to make subsidiarity-the entrusting of power and authority to the lowest and 

least centralized institutions capable of using them well-a key to addressing the particular 

problems of our age of individualism. The empowerment of a diverse array of mediating 

institutions, as opposed to a single, central national authority, was always one important way of 

dealing with the multiplicity and diffusion of American life before the intense consolidation of 

the early 20th century, and modernized forms of that approach to social life must now come to 

serve that purpose again. 

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Subsidiarity can allow for a pluralism of communities, and so avoid the worst excesses of both 

conformism and individualism. It can liberate people to pursue the good as they understand it 

together with others who share their understanding. But precisely by enabling people to be 

ensconced in a dense web of community rather than alone in the great mass of the public, it can 

also afford them the opportunity to benefit from moral order and structure and from the aid and 

love and support that can only be extended at the level of the person. 

This does not mean that devolution or federalism offers some magic cure to our problems. But it 

suggests that we should allow an inclination toward subsidiarity to influence our foremost policy 

debates. That means bringing to public policy the kind of dispersed, incremental, bottom-up 

approach to progress that increasingly pervades every other part of American life-an approach 

that lets authority flow through our mediating institutions, and that solves problems by giving 

people options and letting their choices drive the process. 

Over the past decade and more, ideas rooted in this kind of vision have been developed and 

refined by a circle of generally younger, policy-minded conservatives. From health care to 

education to welfare, taxation, regulation, and across the full spectrum of domestic affairs, they 

have worked to turn this vision into substantive policy proposals. 

A similarly decentralized and community oriented progressivism is also imaginable-and we 

have seen forms of it emerge in our politics from time to time, perhaps most recently in the 

1990s. It certainly might come less naturally at first to today's Left in America. But it could draw 

upon a rich tradition of progressive localism and community and labor organizing that points in a 

rather different direction than much of what the American left has emphasized in recent years. 

Beyond the familiar applications of this kind of approach-in school choice, say, or in some 

conservative approaches to health care reform-there are ways that forms of decentralization 

could be of some use in taking on some of the distinct problems of this particular time. It could 

help, at least at the margins but maybe also near the core, to combat wage stagnation and the loss 

of working class jobs for instance by enabling experimentation not only with welfare and wage 

supports but with different forms of labor law and worker organizing and by encouraging 

competition in higher education and skills training that can create new opportunities. 

It could help us meet the challenge of better enabling economic mobility, as well, by allowing for 

experimentation with various approaches to assisting Americans in need. Experimentation, after 

all, is what you do when you do not know the answer. And it is hard to deny that when it comes 

to our most profound socioeconomic problems in America, we do not have a reliable formula for 

effective help. The challenge facing welfare reformers is daunting: They have to find ways to 

help people who lack not only money but often also stable families, functional communities, and 

decent schools. They have to encourage work and responsibility while offering aid, and they 

often have to help people break bad habits or confront addiction or abuse while also respecting 

their dignity and independence. This can't be done by a government check. Welfare often works 

best when it is accompanied by advice, by obligations, and by evident compassion at a personal 

level. Using public resources to let different institutions-from state social agencies to local civic 

groups to churches and non profits-try different ways of meeting this challenge in different 

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circumstances is what we need to do when solutions are not clear, and when it isn't clear that any 

one solution will suffice in different circumstances. That kind of policy logic, the logic of 

subsidiarity, would serve us well in many arenas. 

And what about national unity? Decentralization might easily seem like a force for more 

fragmentation and division, not for unity. But that would be true if the alternative were a 

cohesive and consolidated polity. Because the real alternative in the lives of many Americans 

today is actually isolation and a radical individualism, a more decentralized politics can work to 

draw people out of their narrow circles and into the public arena-toward a common space 

where Americans can see each other face to face, and where not every question has to be an alior-nothing political fight to the death in Washington. 

So subsidiarity, federalism, and decentralization can be a focal point for an agenda of renewal 

that emphasizes social capital. And given the sorry shape of national politics in America, that 

kind of focus might attract progressives and conservatives alike. 

By beginning closer to the ground, we can start to focus again on what holds us together. 

Champions of localism and subsidiarity in America love to cite Edmund Burke's reference to the 

"little platoons" that make up a society. But we would be wise to remember the context in which 

that line arises for Burke. It's not a case for fragmentation but for unity. "To be attached to the 

subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society," Burke wrote, "is the first principle 

(the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed 

towards a love of our country, and of mankind." 

That first link is broken in the lives of many Americans today. And given the particular shape of 

our problems, we might begin to repair it by taking on more problems where they are found and 

thinking about politics from the bottom up a little more. This is surely part of what it would 

mean to take social capital seriously, and to see that the healing our country now badly needs 

could be made easier if we found ways to lower the temperature of our national debates and 

instead allow what happens in our near-at-hand communities to matter more. 

Ultimately, the ability of public policy (and particularly national public policy) to address the 

kinds of problems that bedevil countless American communities today is limited. Policymakers 

in Washington should recognize that, and should avoid building unreasonable expectations or 

making impossible promises. Politics cannot solve our country's 2P' century dilemmas. But it 

can play a role in helping us to solve them. And it can begin to play that role by coming to 

understand the purpose of government as enabling Americans to better help one another. Politics 

can help, in other words, by taking social capital seriously. 

I am enormously encouraged, therefore, by your decision to hold this hearing, and enormously 

grateful to be invited to take part. 

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"What We Do Together: The State of Social Capital in America Today" 

Joint Economic Committee 

May 17,2017 

Testimony of Mario L. Small, 

Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology at Harvard University 

Chairman Tiberi, Vice Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Heinrich, and other members of the 

committee, I thank you for the invitation. I appreciate the opportunity to help begin a discussion of 

how better understanding social capital can help Congress both identify problems facing the nation 

and develop potential solutions. 

I will make three points. First, social capital is a characteristic not just of nations but also of 

individuals. Second, individuals who have access to and who use their social capital have been 

shown to do better, by multiple measures, than those who do not. Third, recent studies suggest that 

early education and childcare programs may be an especially effective venue to help low-income 

parents generate social capital. This social capital may, in turn, benefit both parents and children. 

will focus much of my testimony on the potential for early education and childcare programs to 

increase the social capital, and overall wellbeing, of low-income parents and children. 

SOCIAL CAPITAL 

Social capital is a characteristic not only of nations but also of individuals 

To have a productive conversation about social capital, it is important to be clear that the term can 

refer to a characteristic of either nations or individuals.' As a characteristic of nations, social capital 

has been understood as a country's degree of connectedness, sense of community, and civic 

participation. There is an ongoing debate over whether this kind of social capital has declined over 

the last forty or fifty years in American society. There is strong evidence that some practices have 

declined-these include participation in voluntary organization and several forms of informal but 

important social engagement, such as joining bowling leagues and hosting dinner parties. 2 There is 

also strong evidence that some conditions have not declined-these include the number of 

confidants people report and the degree to which people spend time with friends 3 And there is also 

strong evidence that some practices have increased-a notable example is the extent of participation 

in political communities outside one's local neighborhood or town4 The debate over whether the 

nation's social capital has declined is ongoing. 

Most of my comments will be about the social capital not of nations but of individuals. In this 

context, social capital refers to the resources that individuals have access to by virtue of their social 

1 Partes, Alejandro, 1998, "Social Capital: Its Meaning and Applications in Modern Sodology,'1 Annual Review ofSociolo,fJ!, 

24:1-24; Portcs, Alejandro, 2000, "The Two Meanings of Social Capital," Sociologica!Fo171m, 15(1):1-12. 2 Putnam, Robert, 2000, BowlingA!nne (New York: Simon and Schuster). 3 Fischer, Claude, 2011, Still Comzected (New York: Russell Sage Foundation). 4 Rainie, Lee and Barry Wellman, 2012, Networked (Cambridge, l'vfA: MIT Press). 
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networks.' These "resources" can be of many different kinds. 6 I focus on three resources that are 

especially important: information, social support, and the reinforcement of social norms.' 

To avoid ambiguity, I will use an example. Consider someone who has decided, after reaching an 

age milestone, that they must now rake exercise seriously. The person joins a gym and begins lifting 

weights, with the objective of attaining, and maintaining, a strength milestone while remaining 

injury-free. In this venture, the beginning weight-lifter has some unknown probability of success. 

Social capital theory would suggest that the probability increases to the extent that the lifter can 

access and make use of social capital from her or his networks. Specifically, the person is more 

likely to succeed if he or she finds a partner, because of three resources, or kinds of social capital, 

available from that connection, (a) information, (b) social support, and (c) the reinforcement of 

social norms. 

(a) Consider information. The beginning weightlifter will have some knowledge about nutrition, 

proper form, and other matters essential to a successful weightlifting program. So will the partner. 

Each is also likely to consult the internet, doctors, and others. As a result, the lifter and the partner 

will each have some information that the other does not have on matters essential to their objective, 

such as how much weight to lift during each session, how to ensure good nutrition, and how to 

avoid injury. This information will increase the lifter's odds of success. 

(b) Consider social support. While a person can lift weights alone, having a partner means having 

access to a valuable form of support. Weight-lifters call a "spotter" a person who stands near the 

lifter to assist with the weights in case the lifter is unable to complete a repetition. A person lifting 

with a spotter has a kind of support that helps the lifter reduce injury rates and press heavier 

weights, again increasing the odds of success. 

(c) Consider the reinforcement of norms. To succeed in a new weight-lifting venture, a person must 

stick to a routine. Doing so can be difficult, and the presence of a partner helps reinforce the 

importance of sticking to the routine. A lifter having a difficult morning is less likely to skip the predawn trek to the gym if he or she knows that the partner will be there waiting. The consistency 

produced by the reinforcement of norms also increases the odds of success. 

These three resources-information, social support, and the reinforcement of norms--<>re not 

money; they arc not economic capital. They are social capital. It is important to note that social 

capital is unlikely to be a substitute for economic capital in many contexts, particularly among lowincome individuals. For many objectives, money is a necessary condition of success. For example, 

the lifter must be able to afford the necessary changes in nutrition, new clothing, shoes, and gym 

membership. But social capital can also be essential, as it increases the odds that a person who has 

already committed to an objective-whether it is finding a job, managing the difficulties of poverty, 

5 Bourdieu, Pierre, 1986, "fhe Forms of Capital," pages 241-58 in J .G. Richardson (ed) Handbook ofTheory and &search for 

the Sociology of Education (New York: Greenwood); Coleman, James, 1988, (<Social Capital in the Creation of Human 

Capital," American] oumal of S ociolog;y, 94:S9 5-S 120. 6 Bourdieu, «Forms of Capital"; Coleman, "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital"; Portcs, usocial Capital"; 

Lin, Nan, 2001, Social Capitat A Theory if Social Strncture and Action (New York: Cambridge University Press). Researchers 

have debated whether certain resources, such as social support, should be labeled "social capital''; however, there is little 

debate at this point over whether the resources themselves matter. 

7 Small, Mario, 2009, Unantidpated Gaim (New York: Oxford University Press). 

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returning to school after childbearing, or something else-will succeed. Many people have difficulty 

attaining their own objectives because of insufficient social capital. 

There are times when commentators have used the term "social capital" to refer to core values such 

as the importance of hatd work, marriage, or education. However, values and social capital are 

different things. Values ate beliefs; social capital is a tool. People can strongly value something but 

have difficulty achieving it in the absence of effective tools. Just as the weightlifter my fail not out 

of lack of motivation but out of lack of social capital, so may a highly motivated person pursuing 

other life goals have difficulty meeting them due to a lack of information, support, or normreinforcement available through social networks. In fact, some cognitive psychologists have 

suggested that poverty makes it especially difficult to attain goals because the mind is concerned 

constantly with the perils of poverty.' In such contexts, social capital can be an especially valuable 

tool. 

Individuals with greater social capital tend to do better 

The social scientific evidence supports the claim that social capital is as beneficial as the analogy I 

have used suggests. At this point, the evidence is overwhelming that access to information, social 

support, and reinforced norms from social networks makes a difference in people's lives, affecting 

their economic, physical, and mental wellbeing. For example, researchers have documented 

extensively that social networks help people get jobs and move up the occupational ladder, because 

of the information the networks provide-' Similarly, they have documented repeatedly that social 

networks help buffer against the physical and mental health consequences of major life stressors, 

because of the social support the networks provide10 

Nevertheless, there is probably no effective way for government to increase people's social capital 

by telling them they should. Even informing people of the benefits of social capital is unlikely to be 

sufficient, since the demands of work and family life that many people experience today means that 

few of them believe they have extra time to make friends for the sake of their likely benefits. 

However, it is possible for effective policy to help individuals in targeted contexts to develop 

networks with beneficial social capital. 

I will devote the rest of my testimony to discussing evidence that suggests that early education and 

childcare programs may be a powerful venue to improve conditions for not only children but also 

parents; I will show that mothers who enroll their children in such programs often generate social 

capital, that this social capital is beneficial, and that there is reason to believe that targeted 

interventions may help such programs maximize these benefits. 

8 Mullainathan, Sendhil and Eldar Shafu, 2013, Scarcity (New York: Henry Holt and Company). 9 Burt, Ronald, 1992, Strnctura! Hole; (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Granovctter, Mark, 1995, Getting a 

.fob. znd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press); Brian Rubineau and Roberto M. Fernandez, 2017. HHow Do 

Labor !vfa.rkets Work?'' In Emerging Trend! in the Behavioral and S odal S ciencei, edited by Robert A. Scott and Martis 

Buchmann (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). 10 Berkman, Lisa F., and S. Leonard Syme, 1979. "Social Networks, Host Resistance, and Mortality:/'~. Nine-Year 

Follow-up Study of Alameda County Residents," American Joumal of Epidemiology 109(2):186-204; House, James S., K:arl 

R. Landis, and Debra Umberson, 1988, "Social Relationships and Health," Science 241(4865):540-45. 

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CHILDCARE CENTERS 

Mothers who enroll their children in childcare centers tend to have greater social capital 

For the sake of brevity, I will use the term "childcare center" to describe daycare, pre-school, Head 

Start, and early-education centers, even though these entities differ widely in the kinds of services 

they provide. Enrolling a child in a childcare center may expand a mother's network of close 

friends. This was the conclusion of a recent study based on a nationally representative survey of 

urban mothers of young children." 

The survey, the Fragile Families Study, asked all mothers, regardless of whether they used childcare 

centers, how many close friends they had. A comparison of mothers whose children were enrolled 

in a center ("enrolled mothers") and those who were not ("non-enrolled mothers") shows major 

differences. The comparison is based on a statistical analysis that adjusted for variables affecting 

whether mothers were likely to enroll their children in centers in the first place.12 As shown in the 

figure below, statistically average enrolled mothers have about 4.7 close friends; non-enrolled 

mothers have about 3.5 close friends. This difference of 1.2 friends is statistically significant. 13 

Predicted number of close friends 

for statistically average mother of 5-yea:r old 

Child is not in -center Child is in cmte.r 

Soun:e: Small~ 2009~ Fig. 2.3. Negati<:e binomial regression 

model; includes controls for income, tace, age, edUC2tion, # 

clW.dt-en~ # adults in household~ employment, md macitll :l!ld 

cohabiting stll.tus. Robust standud errors account for city 

clustering. 

11 These and all figures in the following sections are reported in Small. 2009. 12 The variables are income, race, age, education, number of children, number of adults in the household, employment 

sratus, marital and cohabiting status~ and city location. 1be estimates also adjust statistically for several important 

elements of the survey design. 13 If these models are re-estimated after adjusting for whether the mother had specifically made friends in the center1 the 

difference is reduced to 0.2 friends and no longer statistically significant. This finding is consistent with the idea that 

enrolled mothers have more friends specifically because of the friends they made in centers. 

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These results arc based on survey, not experimental, data. They cannot definitively state that 

enrolling in a center causes the average mother to increase her network size. However, the 

observational data make clear that the activities in the centers themselves must be part of the story. 

As shown in the figure below, 60% of mothers who enrolled their child in a pre-school, daycare, or 

pre-kindergarten made at least one new friend there; 51% made two or more friends; 40% made 

three or more. Most mothers in childcare make friends there, and many of them expand their social 

networks dramatically. In addition, statistically adjusting for whether the mother made a friend in 

the center eliminates the observed difference between enrolled and non-enrolled mothers, which is 

consistent with the idea that enrolled mothers have more friends precisely because they made them 

in the centers (rather than because they were more likely to expand their network even if they had 

not enrolled in a center). 

Number of new friends made in center, statistically 

average mother of 5-year old enroled in center 

A different way of understanding this guestion is by considering the extent of social isolation, the 

probability of having no close friends whatsoever. The story is similar. Very few mothers, fewer 

than 10% of the nationally-representative sample, are this radically isolated, so the guestion is 

whether enrolling in a center reduces that probability even further. As shown below, this appears to 

be the case. The predicted probability of having no close friends is about 8% for a non-enrolled 

mother, and 6% for an enrolled mother. The reduction, which is about 25% of the baseline 

probability, is statistically significant." 

l-1. As beforet adjusting for whether friends were made in centers reduced the difference and rendered it statistically 

insignificant. 

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Predicted probablliy of being socially 

isolated, urban mothers of 5-year olds 

Child is in center 

Child is not in center 

5.8% 

7.7% 

Difference statistically significant at 0.05 level. 

Source: Small, 2009, Table 2.2. Logistic regression 

model; includes controls for income, race, age, 

education, # children, # adults in household, 

employment, and marital and cohabiting status. 

Robust standard errors account for city clustering 

In sum, most mothers with children in childcare centers make friends there, and these friends are 

associated with an increase in size of the close network and a reduction in probability of being 

socially isolated. 

Ethnographic data and survey data on center directors make clear that mothers expand their 

networks in part because of the opportunities for interaction provided by field trips, spring 

cleanings, fundraising events, and all of the parent meetings required to make such activities 

happen.15 The centers most effective at creating social capital host many such activities, and these 

are often, if not primarily, organized by parents themselves. The centers most effective at generating 

social capital are hubs of activity, but these activities are not there for the sake of creating social 

capital; they are there because the centers have committed to numerous field trips and other activities 

that, in order to be successful, require parental participation. Centers that do a lot require parents to 

get involved. Involvement, in turn, generates social capital. 

The social capital created in centers appears to reduce material hardship 

These networks make a difference. My research has examined two separate indicators of wellbeing, 

material hardship and mental hardship, and the evidence suggests that the social capital generated 

through the connections in childcare centers helps reduce the fanner among low-income 

households and the latter among all mothers. Consider, first, material hardship. 

Overall material hardship 

An important indicator of wellbeing is the experience, or avoidance, of material hardship. The 

standard measure of poverty in place since the 1960s has been known for years to measure only 

crudely the true material hardship that individuals face, such as their inability to obtain food or 

housing. For example, the value of real estate has risen dramatically over the past 50 years, 

outpacing inflation. Rent and mortgage costs account for a greater share of the incomes of middleand low-income populations than they did a generation or two ago. For this and other reasons, 

examining the actual experience of material hardship is a clearer indicator of tbe difficulties 

associated with low incomes. 

"Small, 2009, Chapter 3. 

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Acquiring the resources needed to avoid or reduce material hardship is not simply a matter of having 

enough income. In fact, there are many ways to acquire such resources. Researchers have found 

that income may account for as little as a quarter of the variation in material hardship (measured by 

food, housing, and health care insecurity)." People use resources such as food banks and soup 

kitchens, Medicaid, and emergency utility coverage to avoid material hardship. However, people 

have to know these resources exist and know how to obtain them, and networks are effective means 

to acquire such information. The data suggests that the networks mothers form in childcare centers 

help them acquire such resources. 

Material hardship is not rare among households with young children. The table below exhibits the 

weighted proportion of respondents in the national survey who experienced each of eight different 

measures of material hardship in the year roughly encompassing the focal child's age 4 to 5. The 

flrst four measures identify home-related hardship. Eleven percent of mothers, for example, did not 

pay the full amount of rent at least once; small proportions of mothers-fewer than 10%-were 

forced to move in with others or into a shelter. Recent research suggests that the 2008 collapse of 

credit markets might have led to particularly high rates of housing instability and eviction." A very 

small proportion of households needed but were unable to receive the care of a doctor. The larger 

proportions are in the subsequent mqsures, which indicate whether the mother did not pay the 

utility bills or had to borrow money from friends or family to pay such bills. While the proportion 

that was forced to borrow in order to pay bills is relatively high at about 22%, the proportion that 

had their gas or electricity cut off is relatively low, probably due to protections in many local laws 

against cutting some utilities as well as emergency utility coverage provided by local governments. 

16 Mayer, Susan E. and Christopher Jencks, 1989, uPoverty and the Distribution of Material Hardship.n ]ottmal ifHu!JJan 

Resources 24(1):88--114. 

17 Desmond, Matthew, 2016, Evicted (New York: Crown). 

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Experience of hardship over the previous twelve months, households with 5-year olds, 

as reported by mothers 

Measure of hardship Proportion ofhouseboldr 

1. Did not pay the full amount of rent or mortgage payments 

2. Was evicted from home or apartment for not paying the rent or mortgage 

3. Moved in with other people even for a little while because of financial probems 

4. Stayed in a shelter, abandoned building, automobile, or other place not meant 

for regular housing, even for one night 

5. N ceded to see doctor or go to the hospital but couldn't go because of 

cost (anyone in household) 

6. Did not pay the full amount of a gas, oil, or electricity bill 

7. Borrowed money from family or friends to help pay the bills 

8. Had gas or electricity cutoff, or heating oil not delivered by company, 

because there wasn't enough money to pay the bills 

9. \Vas hungry but didn't eat because couldn't afford enough food 

Source: Fragile Families Survey; Small2009. Households may be single or dual-headed. 

11.3% 

2.2% 

6.5% 

2.8% 

3.3% 

17.5% 

21.9% 

3.9% 

5.0% 

Assessing fully whether the social capital built in childcare centers helps households reduce hardship 

requires multiple methods, including both surveys and randomized control trials. At the moment, I 

know of no such trials. However, the survey data suggest that social capital helps reduce material 

hardship. 

The indicators discussed above were used to create a standard material hardship scale in which each 

indicator was worth one point.18 To determine based on survey data whether enrolling in centers 

helps mothers reduce their hardship score, it is important to take into account the possibility of 

"selection bias" from unobserved factors. The figures below follow a lagged dependent variable 

model approach, which involves statistically accounting not only for the demographic variables 

known to matter but also for the mother's wellbeing prior to enrolling in the center. This approach 

greatly increases confidence that the effect is not biased due to selection, since it explicitly takes into 

account how well mothers were doing before the time of enrollment, thereby accounting for 

fundamental but time-invariant unobserved differences. The models also take into account 

differences in mothers' natural sociability or propensity to form friends by adjusting for the number 

of friends they had in general (regardless of whether they were formed in centers). 

18 This is a more logical strategy than performing factor analysis. The items in the scale measure different types of 

hardship; they are not elements of a siogle underlying construct. As Mayer and Jencks (1989:98) argue, the "items that 

compose the hardship measures are not supposed to measure the same underlying construct) so we cannot estimate the 

measure's reliability from the inter-item correlations, any more than we could estimate the reliability of an income 

measure from the intercorrelations among various kinds of income." To include the "lagged" measure of hardship 

from the earlier wave, the indicators of hardship had to be restricted to those questions included in both waves of the 

survey; measures 1 through 7 fit this criterion. For details, see Small, 2009. 

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l 

j 

tl 

J 

~ 

] 

5% 

0% 

-5% 

-to%· 

-15% 

-20"/t> 

-25% 

-30% 

-35% 

-40"A, 

-45% 

How much lower is predicted hardship score when compared to 

a mother whose child is not in a center? 

'"In <:ent<::r, made no friends. In centa, made ftien& 

Source: Fragile Families Survey. See Small 2009 for details. 

The figure shows how much lower the enrolled household's predicted hardship score is when 

compared to non-enrolled households, as reported by the mothers. The figure separates those living 

below and above the federal poverty line. As shown, among households below the poverty line the 

predicted hardship score is about 20% lower for mothers enrolled in centers than for non-enrolled 

mothers, both for those who made friends in centers and those who did not. 19 Among households 

above the poverty line, the predicted hardship score is about 40% lower when mothers enrolled in 

centers and expanded their networks there. (The percent reduction is large among non-poor 

mothers because far fewer of them are likely to experience hardship in the first place, so the 

difference is based on a much smaller baseline.'~ 

Note that for low-income mothers, enrolling a child in a center reduces the predicted hardship score 

regardless of whether they made friends there. This result appears to be due to the fact that centers 

serving low-income children, such as Head Start centers, often connect parents to service-providing 

organizations in their communities. This kind of social capital, which results from organizational 

rather than social ties, also represents a valuable resource to the poor. 

Specific measures of material hardrhip: housing 

Some of the indicators of hardship in the table above measure hardship imperfectly. For example, 

the first measure asks whether the mother did not pay the rent or mortgage at least once during the 

previous twelve months. Sometimes, people do not pay their rent or mortgage because they do not 

have the money to do so. But sometimes, they simply forget. Other times, people decide to 

withhold payment, such as renters who want to punish the landlord for not fixing the radiator, or 

those generally exercising their legal rights in the face of neglectful management. Therefore, while 

19 The differences between each condition and the baseline arc marginally significant, at the .06 level for making not 

friends in the center vs. not being in the center1 and at the .09 level for making friends there vs. not being in a center. 

Among enrolled mothers, there is no statistically significant difference between the effects of enrolling while making 

friends and enrolling while not making friends. 2

° For full analysis, see Small, 2009. 

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some measures of hardship indicate material diffimlty, others confound material difficulty with other 

conditions. There are three indicators of actual housing difficulty: being evicted, having to move in 

with friends or family, or having to move to a shelter or sleep in an abandoned building or in a car. 

Four percent of non-poor mothers, and 16% of poor mothers reported experiencing at least one 

indicator of true housing difficulty. 

The following analysis shows the relationship between center enrollment and actual experience of 

housing difficulty. 21 The table focuses only on low-income mothers, and is based on statistical 

analyses that account for the variables described earlier. It shows that the probability of 

experiencing one of those forms of housing-related hardship is lower for a statistically average 

enrolled poor mother than for one not enrolled, even after taking into account prior experience of 

these difficulties. 

Predicted probability of experiencing housing-related 

hardship for a statistically average urban poor mother 

of a 5-year old 

Child not in center 

Child io center, mother made no friends 

Child io center, mother made friends 

8.8% 

3.9% 

4.0% 

Source: Fragile Families Survey; Small2009, Table 2.4. Logistic regression model; 

includes all previous controls plus total number ()f close friends and lagged 

version of the dependent variable. Robust standard errors account for city 

clustering. 

J'pecijic measures of material hardship: utilities 

As with housing, people may have failed to pay a bill for a number of reasons, not merely because 

they could not afford it. The table below limits hardship indicators about utilities to borrowing 

money in order to pay hills and having one's utilities cut off, both of which denote actual difficulty. 

The table presents results of a model estimating the probability of experiencing either of the two 

purest forms of utilities hardship for a statistically average poor mother. All previous controls are 

included, including prior utilities-related hardship22 

21 The first four measures in the earlier table are indicators of housing-related hardship. The first, which asks mothers 

whether rent or mortgage was paid, is clearly the least pure indicator of hardship. The remaining three are appropriate 

measures, since they indicate eviction, which is not a person's choice; having to move in with others because qffinancial 

difficulty; and staying in a shelter, an abandoned building, a car, oc some other place not meant for regular housing. 22 Since there was no measure in the previous wave for item 8 (having one's utility cut oft), the lagged dependent 

variable is only for whether they borrowed money in order to pay the bills. 

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Predicted probability of experiencing utilities-related 

hardship for a statistically average urban poor mother 

of a 5-year old 

Child not in center 

Child in center, mother made no friends 

Child in center, mother made friends 

33.3% 

30.5% 

26.8% 

Source: Fragile Families Sun>ey, Small, 2009, Table 2.5. Logistic regression model; 

includes all previous controls plus totaJ number of close friends and lagged 

version of the dependent variable. Robust standard errors account for city 

clustering. 

As the table makes clear, the statistically average urban poor mother has between a 25% and 35% 

probability of experiencing material hardship with regard to her utilities. The probability is lower if 

her child is in a childcare center, and even lower if she made friends there. The social capital effect is 

statistically significant. 23 

In sum, the findings suggest that social networks developed by mothers in childcare centers help 

reduce material hardship. The ethnographic evidence suggests that the networks provide 

information and social support, two forms of social capital, that help mothers temper some of the 

negative consequences of poverty. It also suggests that the organizations to which centers such as 

Head Starts are connected provide valuable information and resources to low-income parents. I 

now consider the relationship between social capital and mental hardship. 

The social capital created in centers appears to reduce mental hardship 

Depression affects the ability to maintain a job, raise children, and contribute productively to the 

functioning of society. Respondents to the survey were asked a series of eight diagnostic questions 

to ascertain the experience of a major depressive episode over the previous twelve months. The 

questions were derived from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, Short Form, Section 

A.:u Respondents who reported seven symptoms for half a day or who reported taking depression 

medication were counted as depressed. The figure below assesses the predicted odds of being 

depressed, controlling for prior depression and for friendliness, as before. It compares mothers in 

centers, and those who made friends there, to those who did not. 

23 Nevertheless, the effect of being enrolled does not attain the level of statistical significance if the mother made no 

friends in the center; if she did, the difference is marginally significant at the 0.09 level. Mothers may use centers to 

acquire resources from the state. For example, in New York City, the Home Energy Assistance Program "assists lowincome households with their fuel and /or utility costs. Emergency assistance is also available to HEAP-eligible 

households that pay directly for heat and are faced with "shut-off' notices. The Department for the Aging also 

administers the Weatherization, Referral and Packaging Program (\X'RAP) which provides low-income senior 

homeowners with free home energy-related services that can lower energy bills and increase the comfort of their homes. 

For more information or to apply, please call311." New York City Department for the Aging. Frequently Asked 

Quescions. http:l/home2.nyc.gov/htmlldft;J/htmllfaq/faq.shtml. Accessed 7/23/06. 24 Kessler, Ronald C., Hans-Ulrich Wittcheo,Jamie M. Abelson, Katherine ~.fcgonagle, Norbert Schwarz, Kenneth S. 

Kendler, Barbel Kna.uper, and Shangyang Zhao, 1998, "Methodological Studies of the Composite International 

Diagnostic Interview in the US National Comorbidity Smvey." Intemationai Journal ojlvlethod.r in Psy:hiatric Research 7(1):33-

SS. The enti1·e intecv:iew is not conducted. Instead, a portion of the intervieu.rs are used. and, on this basis. estimates arc 

created of the probability that the respondent would be categorized as depressed if given the full interview. 

11 
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How much lower are the odds of being depressed 

when compared to mother whose child is not in a center? 

The effect of enrolling in a center is statistically significant only when mothers made friends there. 

The effect is large. The odds ofbcing depressed are between 40% and 55% lower for mothers who 

enrolled in centers and made friends there than for comparable mothers ·who did not enroll in 

centers, even after taking into account their history of depression and their latent friendliness. As in 

all other results, randomized control trials would be necessary to ascertain whether there are true 

causal effects. However, the findings arc consistent with the many studies across the social sciences 

suggesting that social capital cftects are real. 

The social capital created in centers can be t!Sed to increase attendance 

'I110ugh government cannot tell people whom to be friends with, social policy in early education and 

care programs can affect whether people have greater opportunities to create valuable social capital. 

J\ recent intervention in a Head Start center suggests this possibility. A team of researchers 

developed an innovative pilot study to examine whether a ncar-zcro~cost intervention that did not 

overly burden parents could increase social capital and maximize children's attendance. The results 

of the pilot study, published last fall, were promising." 

For Head Start to work, children need to attend classes consistently. \V'hen attendance is low, 

children are naturally less exposed to the education needed for kindergarten readiness. In addition, 

when children are enrolled but not attending class they still occupy slots that coul.d have been taken 

up by other children, which is an inefficient usc of resources. Maximizing Head Start attendance 

makes hoth educational and economic sense by improving cognitive dcvdopment and reducing 

\vaste. 

25 Sommer) Teresa Eckrich~ Terri J. 

Yang Huang, 2016, ~<Promoting r'arenrs' 

From an Experimental Intentention,» 

Chase-Lansdale, i\fatcio SmalL Henry Wilde, Sean Brown & Zong 

to Increase Childrenrs Attendance in Head Start: Evidem;e 

See also, "1.1le T~.vo 

Generation-~-\pproach/~ hU:Jl;Lh;~trlm;r!ml!.UlliiJlt~QJ;g:4J:!lg!;~:b£11\'Q;;~~~lJQQ;Jlll!lJ[Ql!£h. 

12 
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The intervention was conducted in a large, 18-classroom Head Start center that had experienced 

problems maintaining high attendance. At the center, average daily attendance over the course of 

the previous years had typically exhibited a u-shaped pattern: it was high in September; it dipped 

gradually to its lowest point in February; it and climbed back up slowly and not quite fully in May. 

(It began to dip again in June as families began their summer vacations.) At its lowest point, the 

average daily attendance rate, or the proportion of children who attended each day, was around 

70%. 

Sometimes, low-income parents have difficulty meeting the objective of maximizing their children's 

attendance as a result of a lack of social capital, particularly social support and norm reinforcement 

from other parents, because unexpected emergencies often faced by the poor get in the way of 

transporting their children to the center. The intervention was designed to promote parental social 

capital and, in turn, to increase attendance. \Vhen families arrived over the sununer and fall to enroll 

their children for the academic year, they were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. 

(a) Families in the first condition were assigned to a neighborhood classroom, one in which all 

children were residents of the same neighborhood, one of four neighborhoods served by the center. 

Parents were informed that children in their classroom were of the same neighborhood. Sharing a 

neighborhood with other parents might make it easier to ask one of them to take one's child to the 

center in case of an emergency (social support). 

(b) families in the second condition were also assigned to a neighborhood classroom; in addition, 

they were given the opportunity to form a partnership with another parent to help maximize 

attendance. To do so, the center held a few social gatherings at the beginning of the year to allow 

parents to select an "attendance buddy." No parents were required to select attendance buddies; 

about half of them chose to do so. 26 In addition, attendance buddies had no formal requirement; 

parents were merely asked to let their attendance buddy know if they would be unable to attend on a 

particular day (norm reinforcement and the possibility of social support). 

(c) Families in the third condition, the control, were merely assigned to a classroom as the center 

normally had, wherein children in the classroom hailed from all neighborhoods in the service area. 

In all three conditions, parents held the regular meetings with teachers and other parents that were 

part of the Head Start operation. For parents in all three conditions, social capital was measured in 

the early fall and in the late spring. Attendance was recorded daily. 

The results were promising. First, the intervention increased access to social capital dramatically. 

Parents assigned to the second condition increased their personal network by about one person, 

from a baseline number of about 3 people. The effect was statistically significant. In addition, 

parents assigned to either treatment condition increased the number of other parents in the center 

whom they were willing to ask for help (with taking care of their child, for information on doctors, 

or for a loan)." The increase was about three parents, from a baseline of about four. That is, the 

2

6 "All participants in the combined treatment group were invited to attend a kick-off meeting in whi~h they learned the 

broad goals of the program and socialized with other parents in their child's classroom in order to begin to form 

partnerships. In most cases, parents selected partners voluntarily. In a few instances, family support staff assigned parent 

pairs (e.g., when both parents missed the orientation meeting)" (Sommer et al2016:11). 

2i <'For willingness to ask for hdp, parents were given a list of all children in the classroom and were then asked to 

13 
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intervention dramatically increased both the number of people in parents' networks and their 

willingness to go to others for help. 

Second, the intervention produced moderate but statistically significant increases in attendance 

during the most difficult months of the year. The intervention produced no effects in the fall or 

spring. But in the winter, where attendance was typically lowest, children in the first and second 

treatment conditions had between 5% and 7% greater average daily attendance, a statistically 

significant result. 

Monthly attendance rate by treatment 

Month 

Treatment Geography+ Partner Geography Only Control 

Source: Sommer et al. 2016. "Geography" refers to assignment to a neighborhood classroom 

The intervention was small in scale and exploratory in nature. Still, the results are promising, 

because the cost of this intervention was close to zero dollars, and it made no extraordinary request 

of parents. Even minimal investtnents, a slightly more intensive request, and a refined program are 

likely to produce much stronger effects. A larger intervention might determine whether the federal 

government can maximize the effectiveness of its early education dollars by mobilizing the power of 

social capital. 

indicate (yes/no) whether or not they would feel comfortable asking the child's parent or guardian: (a) to watch their 

child for an hour; (b) for information about a doctor; (c) for $200 as a loan .... The number of times a parent indicar-ed 

"yes" for any of the three categories across all children in the classroom was summed within each category" (Sommer et 

al2016:12). 

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CONCLUSION 

Social capital matters. It can be particularly beneficial for low-income parents and children. At a 

time when the improvement and expansion of early education programs have been topics of serious 

policy debate, thinking more expansively about the role of parents may prove valuablc.28 Many early 

education programs try to get parents involved. However, what I have described is getting parents 

involved with one another. Mobilizing social capital involves making greater use of the resources that 

parents and their ability to connect with each other bring to the table. Social capital is no panacea, 

but creating opportunities for parents to expand their networks and supporting incentives for them 

to meet collective goals may prove beneficial for both parents and children. I recommend that 

Congress explore the potential of interventions focused on social capital in contexts such as early 

education programs. 

28 Heckman, James, 2006, ''Skill Fo.rmat.ion and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children," Science 

312:1900-02; Duncan. Greg and Katherine Magnuson, 2013t "Investing in Preschool Programs," journal q/Eronomit 

Perspectives 27(2):109-32. 

15 
84 

RESPONSE FROM DR. PUTNAM TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED BY

SENATOR MARGARET WOOD HASSAN

HEARING QUESTION: OPPORTUNITY GAP IN EDUCATION

To Dr. Putnam: 

• Dr. Putnam, in your testimony and your book, ‘‘Our Kids: The American Dream 

in Crisis,’’ you quote a landmark study from Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon 

that shows a widening ‘‘class gap’’ in both math and reading scores among 

American kids. 

• This study, along with your research in the book, and your testimony today 

speak to the fact that differences in success are not race-based, but result from 

differences in the opportunities children are provided. 

• Can you address the difference between a racial gap and a class gap, and how 

do we as legislators work to close this opportunity gap? 

Inequality in the United States increasingly operates through education—a scarce 

resource in our knowledge based economy and a measure that is closely correlated 

with parental socioeconomic status. As Reardon’s work shows, and my work broadly 

confirms, controlling for education, racial gaps in income, family structure and test 

scores, though still dismaying, are falling. On the other hand, racial gaps in schooling remain immense. Black parents in America remain disproportionately concentrated among the poor and less educated, so black children continue to be handicapped from the start. Whether their parents are rich or poor, black children live 

in poorer neighborhoods than white children at that income level, and black children 

experience less upward mobility and more downward mobility than their white 

counterparts who started at the same income level. So purely racial biases remain 

powerful, but as barriers to success they represent less burdensome obstacles for minority youth today than they did in the 1950s. By contrast, in modem America one 

barrier looms much larger than it did back then—class origins—and that barrier 

cuts across racial lines. Most racial disparities in opportunity today operate through 

class disparities. Action to address the growing class gap would brighten the prospects for disadvantaged kids of all races. 

As I discussed in my written testimony, the growing class gap in opportunity has 

many sources—family stability, parenting, growing class segregation, access to supportive institutions from day care to neighborhoods to schools to extracurricular activities to post-secondary education. A broad menu of policy remedies for these 

issues is presented in the report ‘‘Closing the Opportunity Gap,’’ prepared by a national, bipartisan group of experts that I chaired in 2016: https:// 

www.theopportunitygap.com/the-report/. Among the most promising approaches are 

high-quality early childhood education, supports for low-income parents, improved 

mentoring, enhanced investment in low-income schools, and greater linking of the 

worlds of work and education. Many of those policy options are now being pursued 

by a nationwide coalition of scores of community foundations—from Seattle to 

Miami and Mobile to Duluth—led by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. 

HEARING QUESTION: WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

To Dr. Putnam: 

• One group that may not be reaping the benefits of social capital in the workplace 

is women, who can be left out of the network men are traditionally more able 

to take advantage of. 

• Mr. Putnam I know that you’ve talked about bridging social capital, the bonds 

between groups—how should we be thinking about how we can help women 

build this capital in the workplace? 

• Furthermore, what are ways that organizations can, or we can encourage organizations to bring women into these traditionally male-dominated networks so that 

they can be more properly represented throughout the hierarchy of the organizations? 

It is certainly true that access to high-quality social networks is increasingly essential to career success, as well as to life satisfaction more broadly. It is also true 

that while women have historically been better ‘‘networkers’’—that is, more attuned 

to the importance of interpersonal connections and social capital—they have not had 

equal access to those informal professional networks that have had the highest economic payoff. Seeing the world through the ‘‘social capital lens’’ highlights the importance of access to such social networks. 

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1For much more depth on what high-quality vocational education and CTE look like, see K. 

Newman and H. Winston, Upskilling America: Learning to Labor in the 21st Century (New 

York: Metropolitan Books, 2016). 2 American middle and high schools sometimes have a ‘‘bring your daughter (or son) to work’’ 

day, but these are haphazard and limit students’ exposure at best to their parents’ occupations. 

Our group recommends exposing middle and high school students systematically to the world 

of work through short-term visits to help shape future choices and help students understand 

how academic coursework prepares them for later careers. This is the norm in Germany, where 

students from the eighth grade typically spend two weeks shadowing adults in factories and offices. Students should get information about career opportunities and the educational pathways 

these careers require. Beyond exposing young people to the work world, institutions need to develop more robust social networks that will assist kids born to less-educated families, who are 

less likely to have personal contacts in professional careers. Intermediary institutions (either 

volunteer or school-run) can help pair kids from less-educated families with a mentor-shadow 

in their desired careers. This exposure at a younger age will help illuminate career pathways 

and help students in high school decide if they want to go to college or start career preparation 

in high school. 3One example of this are individualized learning plans (ILPs) in middle school and high 

school. [This is different than the Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) that students in special education utilize.] Thirty-eight states have begun using ILPs with 21 states mandating 

them for all. An ILP is a step towards ensuring that all students leave high school both careerand college-ready. The ILP should involve discussions and/or diagnostic tests to evaluate student 

strengths and career interests. Once student career interests are established, the ILP links 

courses and post-secondary plans to a student’s career goals and tracks the skills that a student 

has already developed towards being college- and career-ready. This ILP should also involve discussions of how extracurricular and out-of-school learning could further this skill development. 4See Newman and Winston, Upskilling America, 2016. 

That said, I am not an expert on gender in the workplace, so I do not consider 

myself professionally qualified to survey relevant evidence on this topic, still less to 

offer specific policy recommendations. 

RESPONSE FROM DR. PUTNAM TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED BY

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR

APPRENTICESHIPS

As a part of your work on social capital, you convened a group of 50 experts to 

identify possible approaches to narrow the opportunity gap. One of those areas is 

building stronger school-to-work linkages. I have been working to expand access apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship programs. 

• Dr. Putnam, in what ways can apprenticeship model be expanded to serve more 

high school students across the country? 

In responding to this question, I draw heavily on the report ‘‘Closing the Opportunity Gap,’’ prepared by a national, bipartisan group of experts that I chaired in 

2016: https://www.theopportunitygap.com/the-report/. Professor Katherine S. Newman chaired the working group on ‘‘On-Ramps for Success,’’ and Professor Newman 

is herself a nationally recognized expert on apprenticeship.1

We need a more effective workforce-training system to equip today’s youth with 

the skills needed to compete—one that starts early, by giving our youth more intentional and exciting exposure to the world of work.2 This motivates them for the long 

educational road ahead and helps them choose courses or programs that would prepare them.3 Other countries—especially Germany and Austria—do a better job of 

this, by (a) exposing all students to demanding career and technical education; (b) 

engaging employers, unions, and educational institutions in training that produces 

young people with certified, advanced skills; and (c) enabling serious and sustained 

exposure to work through apprenticeships, co-ops, internships, and planned experiences. 

Many of us today think of vocational education as what it used to be, involving 

dull, undemanding classes in ‘‘shop’’ and ‘‘home economics’’ that are not strongly 

connected to future careers. But many high schools are now pioneering or furthering 

high-quality career and technical education (called CTE or CATE).4 These programs 

can also engage students who learn better by doing, through applied and inductive 

learning. This CTE training prepares students for both college and careers, and 

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86 

5 J. J. Kemple, ‘‘Career Academies: Long-Term Impacts on Work, Education, and Transitions 

to Adulthood,’’ MDRC (2008). 6These 400 schools have considerable variation but all arose out of an innovation process, and 

all the schools provide closer student-faculty ties, stronger community partnerships, and rigorous academics. 7 Note: there is a U.S. national office of registered apprenticeships that sets standards, provides grants, and encourages employer/education collaboration. 8South Carolina has attracted significant investment in new factories of German firms hungering for more skilled workers; some attribute this success to the value of apprenticeships, 

while others think it is the prevailing low-cost wage structure and right-to-work laws. 9For an example, see the Newport News (VA) Apprentice College described in ND Schwartz, 

‘‘A New Look at Apprenticeships as a Path to the Middle Class,’’ New York Times (July 13, 

2015). 1See James J. Heckman, 2006, ‘‘Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children,’’ Science 312(5782):1900–02. 

mediately going into careers). Successful examples include Career Academies,5 High 

Schools that Work/Linked Learning, and Small Schools of Choice6: 

Work-based learning: Apprenticeships that coordinate classroom and on-the-job 

learning can often create very helpful on-ramps. The practice is growing in the 

United States 7 but is still used far less than in some other counties (e.g., Germany 

and the UK). In Germany, and in most union-based U.S. models, an industry-educational group must agree on the competencies that a given apprenticeship must develop, and these competencies must have broader relevance beyond the specific employer. Non-union U.S. apprenticeships are typically more employer-specific. Apprentices also benefit because their on-the-job supervisor often unofficially serves as 

a career mentor or coach. Apprenticeships have worked in a wide range of settings 

in the U.S., including high-unionization (e.g., Wisconsin) and low-unionization environments (e.g., South Carolina).8 To be successful, states or localities need to establish an intermediary to recruit schools and businesses to collaboratively train the 

talent needed for existing and new businesses. Community colleges are an obvious 

candidate for that role. In some cases, as in South Carolina or Georgia, businesses 

are offered small tax credits to participate as sites for apprentices—the cost of credits to the State is more than offset by tax revenues from graduates’ downstream employment. Many apprenticeships enable students to earn college degrees while working, so that they can develop transferable skills if they decide to change jobs or 

fields.9

Our current ‘‘BA-for-all’’ policy has deprived many American youth of vital onramps to jobs. To bring about meaningful change, we recommend increasing early 

exposure to potential careers, to make all young Americans more thoughtful about 

where they want to head and how to get there. We also recommend developing pathways of the sort discussed in this report to help Americans realize the many respectable ways they can achieve a stable and comfortable living without the need for a 

four-year degree. 

RESPONSE FROM DR. SMALL TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED BY SENATOR

AMY KLOBUCHAR

CHILDCARE CENTERS

Dr. Small, in your testimony, you noted that mothers who enroll their children in 

childcare centers tend to have greater social capital. In Minnesota, 75 percent of children live in a childcare desert, which means that these children do not live near 

high-quality, affordable childcare. 

• Can you discuss the benefits that childcare has for the parents as well as the 

children? 

For such a high proportion of children to not live near high-quality, affordable 

childcare is a serious problem. High-quality early childcare prepares children educationally at a crucial time in their development, helps families return to and maintain their participation in the labor force, and provides parents with the means for 

more effective parenting. 

The value and significance of early education has been documented many times 

over. Education certainly benefits people at any point in the life course. But quality 

education in the early years has been shown to be essential for the long-term educational and economic success of children, yielding benefits for them and for society 

as a whole.1

Childcare also helps parents. Parents of young children often report that access 

to daycare helps them return to and participate fully in the workforce. The need 

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2See Mario L. Small, 2009, Unanticipated Gains, Oxford Univ. Press. 

3Small, Chapter 2. 

4Small, Chapter 2. 

1Sara McLanahan and Wade Jacobsen, 2015, Pages 3–23 in ‘‘Families in an Era of Increasing 

Inequality,’’ edited by Paul R. Amato, Alan Booth, Susan M. McHale, Jennifer Van Hook, National Symposium on Family Issues 5, DOI 10.1007/978–3-319–08308–7—1. 

is especially important for low-income families, where financial needs or work requirements create strong demand for childcare. 

In fact, childcare can help parents become better parents. Researchers have documented that enrolling their children in childcare centers provides parents with access to a network of other parents, teachers, and organizations that provide social 

support and other resources from the private and public sectors.2 For this reason, 

research has shown that low-income households suffer significantly less material 

hardship after enrolling their children in childcare centers than comparable households that do not, even after taking into account their prior hardship.3 Mothers in 

those households also experience significantly better mental health, because of the 

social supports developed.4 As a result, we can expect them to be stronger and more 

effective parents. 

Any society that hopes to remain competitive in the twenty-first century must find 

ways of providing access to high-quality early care and education. 

RESPONSE FROM DR. SMALL TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED BY RANKING

MEMBER MARTIN HEINRICH

1) We’ve heard quite a bit of discussion about whether American culture is in decline, how that could be impacting economic growth, and what role Congress could 

play. Could you expand on your views on this question? 

The idea that American culture is in decline owes more to nostalgia than to a 

clear reading of the facts. Over the past generation or two, some forms of social capital have declined, such as participation in some kinds of activities (e.g., bowling 

leagues) and some forms of civic engagement. However, others have increased, such 

as the extent of participation with communities far beyond one’s local neighborhood 

or town. In addition, many forms of cultural acceptance are increasing. For example, 

the proportion of Americans who believe that marriage between people of different 

races is morally acceptable is much higher than it was during the 1950s. The extent 

of support for equal rights for all groups is also much greater than it was two generations ago. All of these are signs of cultural enlightenment, not decline. 

2) At the hearing, you mentioned how single-parent births are increasing for all 

groups, except perhaps those at the top of the income ladder. Could you expand on 

this issue and discuss what role this issue should—and should not—play in decisions 

before Congress? 

Births to unmarried women have increased since the 1960s across Americans of 

all class backgrounds. The CDC does not report births to unmarried women by 

class, but researchers have found ways of uncovering the trend. One indicator of 

class is educational attainment. And one indicator of the rate is the proportion of 

mothers who are single and who have a child less than one year old, which tracks 

very closely with births to unmarried women. 

In 2015, demographers Sara McLanahan and Wade Jacobsen showed that between 1960 and 2015 the proportion of mothers in this category has grown for mothers at all education levels. For those in the bottom quarter of the education distribution, the proportion has increased from just over 10% to just under 50%; for those 

in the middle half of the distribution, from about 5% to about 40%; for those in the 

top quarter, from less than 5% to more than 10%.1

Notably, the growth has been roughly equally steep for the bottom two groups, 

which represent everyone up to the 75th percentile of the education distribution. In 

other words, the increases have been steep for the vast majority of mothers. At the 

very top of the education distribution, the increase has been less steep. However, 

notice that it has still been an increase, and the rates have more than doubled. Simply put, giving birth while single is far more common than it used to be for mothers 

of virtually all class backgrounds. The idea that only the working class has seen an 

increase in single births is wrong. 

The rate of births to unmarried mothers is something that Congress should certainly consider as it examines the expansion or contraction of the safety net. Paid 

family leave and early child care are probably more important today than they have 

ever been. At the same time, most researchers would probably be skeptical of efforts 

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to reverse the national trends in births to unmarried mothers, even as they acknowledge that the trends are worrisome. Past efforts to reverse these trends have 

been costly and have not been successful. Instead, Congress should devise policies 

that take into account the new and diverse composition of the modern family. 

3) Discussions about families often focus on a ‘‘Leave It to Beaver’’ nostalgia, highlighting the best of times and glossing over the hardships and struggles that left 

many behind. At the hearing, some witnesses discussed the decline of the ‘‘traditional 

family’’ as having a negative impact on social capital. Unfortunately, that narrow 

definition of a family excludes many and seems to discount the social capital associated with non-traditional, modern family structures. How should policymakers be 

thinking about modern families and ways to support them? 

Many people remember the 1950s fondly. But many also remember the 1950s as 

a time of unequal protection before the law, of State-sanctioned segregation, and of 

high levels of intolerance, as indicated, for example, by the widespread opposition 

to interracial marriage and the meager support for gay rights. When thinking about 

the changes that the country has experienced, it is important to take all cultural 

changes into account, and to acknowledge that many types of community and acceptance have, in fact, improved. A wholesale return to the cultural and social attitudes of the 1950s would not benefit the country today. 

Modern families probably seek the same level of social engagement that those of 

the past did. To cultivate that engagement seriously, the country must, first, acknowledge that most mothers today participate in the paid labor force. A set of policies that support robust paid family leave and affordable early childcare represent 

an essential first step. Such policies not only allow women equal participation in the 

labor force; they also both allow time for and encourage the social engagement essential to high collective social capital. It is not surprising that many of the industrialized countries with high levels of social capital strongly support the family. 

4) You testified about how social networks can strengthen already-effective programs like Head Start. What other programs or policy areas would benefit from including a focus on building social networks? 

Although my expertise lies in the role of social networks among parents in early 

education and childcare centers, it is clear that social networks can make a difference in other arenas. The most natural extension is the K through 12 system, 

where many researchers have shown that schools with effective parental networks 

work more effectively for both parents and children. Exploring ways of cultivating 

parent engagement—not merely with the school but also with one another—may 

help local communities do far more with the resources available. 

Another important context is workforce development programs. The ability to cultivate and mobilize social networks effectively has been shown repeatedly to affect 

success in the labor market. Many of the best workforce development programs have 

ongoing relationships with employers, which represents an essential step in securing placement. But both long-term employment and resilience in the face of layoffs 

benefit from the ability to continuously cultivate and mobilize social networks. 

5) Is a decline in social capital the primary driver behind the limited economic opportunity that some communities are experiencing? What are the main barriers to 

economic opportunity? 

The decline in social capital is not a primary driver of the limited economic opportunity that many are experiencing. The evidence is overwhelming that far more important factors are inadequate public education, under-resourced or unsafe neighborhoods, and discrimination in employment, pay, or promotion. There is strong consensus that a robust increase in high-quality early education, coupled with an improvement in comprehensive, accountable K–12 education is one of the most effective investments the Nation can make to improve economic opportunity for all. 

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SUBMITTED BY SENATOR COTTON

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Figure 2: Real Hour1y Wages by Education 

(allwor1<ers. normalized; 1973=100) ~------------------~--------------------~1~ 

......... 80 

Less thlln ~ School 

1973 1916 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 

Source: Ecmomlc l'ollqf ..-ute 

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JOINT EcoNOMIC CoMMITTEE 

OF 
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WHAT WE DO 

THE OF ASSOCIATIONAL AMERICA 

Today, Americans face a wide variety of challenges in our era of tumultuous transition, 

than in the past despite this real 

progress, them 

happens in the middle 

democratic, and pluralistic country by extended networks of 

trust, and 

social cohesion. In short, it 

The following report is the first product of the Social Capital Project---a multi-year 

research effort that will investigate the evolving quality, and importance of our 

assoc!ationa! ltfe, "Associat!onal 

through we pursue joint An,ierwr,rs--narrlelv 

workplaces, and our religious cor1gr,egrttions, to forming 

our character and capacities, providing us with meaning and purpose, and for 

addressing the many we 

The goal of the why the health of our associationallife 

feels so compromised, what consequences have f'oHowed changes in the middle 

social !ayers of our society, why have more robust civil society than 

social capitaL Through 

relationships that weave 

institutions, our markets, 

will study the stale of the 

our 
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This in!rnd:llc.!•mv 

life,' 

Farnily: Fewer living inftnnilies, tinte spent UJith our fandlies, later 

marriage and chi!dhearing,fewer child'"'"' more single parenthood 

Between 1970 

Between 1970 and 

to 40 

lived with 

by 

spouse, from 71 

per thousand, 

of children being raised by a single parent (or 

to 3i 

births single mothers rose percent of 
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a-religious 

65 to 40 

in poor 
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Between 1995 and 

jobs, independent co,ntn3dino 

arrangements" temp 

percent of the 

27 

less necessary 

much by doing less 
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OF 

Executive Summary 

lntroduct!orL . 

What Is "Associational Life"? .. 

Why ls Assodational Ufe Important? .. 

How Has Associat!onal Life Changed? . 

Conclusion .. 

References .. . 

Endnotes ... . 

. .. 7 

. ......................... 10 

. ..... 14 

. ... 15 

. .. 51 

. ..... 55 

. ............ 68 
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AMERICA 
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including 

PBiiicioa•tion. inforrn:al 

of non> 

definition 

the case 
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Along these lines, 

isolation 

tom by 
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Families Together 
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Trends 'in Family Associational Life 
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1940 

60 
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!he 

most fundamental sphere 
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From a number 

in w-ork 
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Worshiping 

As Putnam 
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with 
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40 2016 

44 
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to 

Trends 
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30 

1974 

JO 

2016 

" 
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grew 
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Working Together 

of work 
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lor 
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how 
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i016 

1999 

Wom"'rr 

'20Hi 

1948 
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Theda. Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in 

American Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. 
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