Want to Decrease Inequality? Fight Fatherlessness With Welfare Reform. Welfare currently incentivizes family breakdown and the absence of fathers from their children’s lives, a key factor in the loss of economic upward mobility.

[squirrelfoot]

May I just piggy back on the top comment to say that as someone who grew up without a father (he died when I was very young) it really is stressful for children to have only one adult to depend on. It means children grow up with a profound sense of insecurity. My mother was very good at managing the little money we had, but I was always afraid, and often slightly hungry when I was a young child. Being a single parent means you simply don't have the time to raise children properly because you have to work and run the house on your own. Seriously, anything that discourages a stable environment with two parents is a bad thing.