The potential of this kind of genuine welfare reform is now being demonstrated in model programs, like Parents' Fair Share Demonstration in nine states and New York's Child Assistance Project. Efforts like these ought to be seen as the starting point for a thoughtful, family-oriented repair of our broken welfare system. As noted earlier, there are almost 5 million American children now growing up in communities where half or more of the adult males are not steadily in the labor force. Not surprisingly most of these kids are poor. More than one-third are welfare dependent.
Half live in father-absent households.
And all the kids are living amidst rising rates of teen pregnancy and unwed parenthood. In these communities, reinforcing families, reconnecting fathers, and fostering self-sufficiency require nothing less than a comprehensive commitment to job and economic development for the underemployed adults who live there. The recently announced Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community grants illustrate the kind and scale of commitment it will take to convert our poorest communities once again into places where strong families with contributing fathers can provide more of what their children need. These recommendations may seem too ambitious or too costly to some readers. We may, in the end, decide we cannot afford to invest in the boys and men who are now living around the margins of the labor force and their families.