moms

The President has made the fairness issue an integral part of his re-election campaign but I believe he has missed an important opportunity to make a difference. Instead of concentrating on bringing the rich down he should look at lifting up those at the bottom.
He should make a concerted effort to make badly needed changes in the inner cities.
The question was asked why the rate of black teen pregnancy has increased at the same time contraception has been more available. The answer is these young women are getting pregnant by choice. 72% of black children are born to single moms and 50% of those moms fail to graduate from high school. Now what does that mean for their future?
The Brookings Institution has spent a great deal of effort studying this issue.
Brookings whittled down a lot of analysis into three simple rules. You can avoid poverty by:
1. Graduating from high school.
2. Waiting to get married until after 21 and do not have children till after being married.
3. Having a full-time job.
If you do all those three things, your chance of falling into poverty is just 2 percent. Meanwhile, you’ll have a 74 percent chance of being in the middle class.

I believe the President could use his stature as the first black president to convince these young women to change their life style. I cannot be sure how successful he would be but it is certainly worth the effort. Of the three rules above the individual is in total control of rules one and two but needs some outside opportunity for rule three. There are minimum wage jobs available at fast food places but many see these as dead end instead of building steps. This is another attitude that the President can make a difference. Leadership is not about helping others but about encouraging others to help themselves. I believe President Obama could help the country a lot more if he would spend more time talking to these young women and less time railing against the millionaires and billionaires.