Five decades later, it’s clear that the problem isn’t about race—it is nearly universal. The works of Charles Murray, Robert Putnam, and J. D. Vance show that these tragic developments are not unique to any geographic or ethnic community. The share of white births occurring outside marriage is now roughly three in ten, which is higher than the “emergency” black rate in the 1960s. And although the teen pregnancy rate is down, the Urban Institute’s “Moynihan Report Revisited” pegs the overall share of black births now occurring outside marriage at more than seven in ten. Fourth, we have unhelpfully come to so identify our obligations to teenagers with the institution of secondary schooling that we have lost the collective memory of folks who came of age without schooling as the defining.
