In addition, MFIP participants who were married at the start of the program were 38 percent more likely still be married three years later than those randomly assigned to the traditional welfare program. These results provide dramatic new evidence that changes in welfare incentives can increase the likelihood that single parents will get married and that married parents will stay married. Apparently, welfare recipients, like everyone else, respond to financial incentives. That this should be a surprise is, well, a surprise to me. Of course, there is a lot more to life than financial incentives.
People get and stay married for all sorts of reasons, only some of which are financial.
Indeed, I hope most reasons people get married are not financial. Part of what states can do is to get the financial incentives right. The other part is to help couples contemplating marriage to develop the skills necessary to form and sustain healthy marriages. Congress should seize on the opportunity afforded by next year's re-authorization of welfare reform to ensure that states understand there is more they can do to promote marriage than many of them think. Dr. Wade F. Horn is President of the National Fatherhood Initiative and co-author of The Better Homes and Gardens New Father Book.