I'm John Batchel. I welcome Veronique de Reggie of the Mercadoe Center of George Mason University,

helping me understand that the U.S. government, by accident or design, punishes people who marry

and rewards people who stay unmarried. Now, what results from that is that in the 20th century,

the number of children born from intact marriages was 95 out of 100. It actually happened in the 20th century. Here in the 21st century,

I think if I read this correctly, two out of five children are born from an unwed mother. What happened? And where's the government?

Veronika, a very good evening to you, correct my statistics if they're wrong, but once upon a time

we were Ozzie and Harriet, or leave it to beaver, mom, dad, two boys, mom, dad, two boys. Now,

there's a mom, there might be two boys and two girls, but there's

no dad. What happened? What did the government do watching this happen? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. Well, a lot of things happened. A lot of things happened. So it is really in the

60th, the marriage rate and the number of birth out of wedlock started,

well, the marriage rate started like plummeting or falling.

Like, let's not exaggerate, but, and the number of birth out of wedlock started actually climbing.

A variety of things, women deferring, entering the workforce,

deferring having their first children, getting married later, contraception,

but also marriage penalty that were built in welfare programs where basically lower income

people were benefiting from welfare programs and they would lose their benefits if they got

married.

And over time, that effect compounded to the

situation where we are now, where there's clearly a lot of marriage penalty in those welfare

programs. The government, however, if I read you correctly, is making it likely that you will

stay unmarried if you're unmarried when you have a child

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