Among females who finish high school, marry and wait until age 20 or after to have their first child, only 8 percent of their children live in poverty. According to the Congressional Budget Office, roughly 50 percent of unwed teenage mothers go on welfare within one year of the birth of their first child and 77 percent within five years. And almost half of those on the rolls for three or more of the past five years started their families as unwed teens. Like Parent, Like Child. As one might expect, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.
Children tend to emulate the behavior of their parents.
Thus, unless the chain is broken, poverty, welfare dependency and single motherhood will, in many cases, be passed down through generations. Avoiding these four poverty traps is a recipe for staying out of poverty. Prepared by Chris Middleton, an intern in the Washington office of the National Center for Policy Analysis.