Democrats demand racial equity in everything except family structure
When Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled New York City’s preliminary racial equity plan in April, it had goals and indicators related to education outcomes, incarceration and child poverty.But while the mayor’s planfocused on creating equal outcomes in the schoolhouse, courthouse and jailhouse, it completely ignored the place where these all begin: the home.This was no administrative oversight.
The truth is that progressives apply an equity lens to every institution except the institution of marriage, and every structure except family structure.Today, close to 70% of black children are born to unmarried parents, a non-marital birth rate significantly higher than the one for their white (27%), Asian (12%) and Hispanic (54%) counterparts.Similar rates exist in New York, where birth data show 75% of African American babies were born out of wedlock in 2023, nearly double the city’s overall rate.These disparities don’t end once a child is born.
Half of black children live with a single parent.Only 28% of African American households are comprised of married couples, compared to a national average of nearly 50%.
Both measures are the result of a steep decline in marriage among African Americans since the 1960s.In 1965, close to 60% of black adults were married.
Today, only 35% are.These statistics point to an uncomfortable but obvious truth: the married, two-parent family structure is now the exception — not the norm — in black America.That matters because the connection between family structure and social outcomes is impossible to deny.The mayor’s vision for racial equity includes a world where “all families have economic security” and no child grows up in poverty.
That goal is impossible when policymakers consistently ignore the relationship between median household income and marriage rates.Asian American families have the highest earnings ($121,700) and marriage rates (62%), followed by whites ($92,530 and 53%), Hispanics ($70,950 and 47%) and then bla...