Overview of 2014 Index
The Index of Culture and Opportunity tracks key social and economic indicators to determine whether important indicators of opportunity in America are on the right track. Expert commentary explores the factors that shape our capacity as a society to enjoy the blessings of liberty today and to pass them on to the next generation.
The Index reports on 31 indicators, based on widely recognized, regularly updated national data. Each indicator’s change over the last 10-year period for which data are available provides a way to see whether the indicator is, overall, heading on the right track or wrong track.
Highlights from the 2014 Indicators
Section 1: Culture
- From 2001 to 2011, the marriage rate dropped by 10.3 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women, or 22.8 percent. Since the 1960s, it has fallen by about 50 percent. “[T]he nation’s retreat from marriage,” writes W. Bradford Wilcox, “means that only about half of the nation’s adults are currently married, and that about half of the nation’s children will spend some time outside an intact, married home”.
- America’s total fertility rate declined by 0.14 births per woman between 2002 and 2012. Since 1972, it has reached the replacement rate of 2.1 only twice, in 2006 and 2007, as Jonathan V. Last explains.
- The U.S. abortion rate dropped by four abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age between 2001 and 2011, continuing a trend that began in 1980. “The 2011 rate for the nation is the lowest since 1973,” writes Charles A. Donovan.
- From 2002 to 2012, the violent crime rate declined by 107.5 crimes per 100,000 people, or 21.7 percent. This continues a “two-decades-long victory over crime,” as Heather Mac Donald explains.
Section 2: Poverty & Dependence
- From 2003 to 2013, the labor force participation rate for adults ages 25 to 54 fell by 2 percentage points. “U.S. labor force participation began falling gradually in 2000 — a decline that accelerated sharply after the onset of the Great Recession,” writes James Sherk.
- The unwed birth rate rose 6.7 percentage points between 2002 and 2012. As Ron Haskins explains, “Nonmarital childbearing is one of the preeminent reasons this nation, despite spending about $1 trillion a year on programs for disadvantaged families, is struggling to reduce poverty and increase economic mobility.”
- From 2002 to 2012, self-sufficiency — the ability of a family to sustain an income above the poverty threshold without welfare assistance — declined as the percentage of individuals living in poverty increased by 2.9 percentage points.
- The work participation rate for recipients of cash welfare declined by 5 percentage points from 2000 to 2010. As Robert Doar points out, it has not risen above 30 percent since 2006: “Restoring the original purpose of welfare reform requires reinvigorating the work participation rate”.
Section 3: General Opportunity
- The percentage of 17-year-olds proficient in reading has remained flat despite massive spending increases for public education.
- Charter school enrollment and private school choice participation have made impressive progress over the past 10 years, each rising by more than 200 percent. As Virginia Walden Ford explains, “More than 300,000 children are attending private schools of their choosing thanks to options like vouchers, tuition tax credit programs, and education savings accounts”.
- The average student loan debt held by each year’s graduates with loans increased by $4,612 between 2001 and 2011. Average student loan debt now stands at $26,500 (in 2012 dollars).
- From 2004 to 2014, the percentage of GDP taken by the federal government in taxes has increased by 1.7 percentage points.
- From 2001 to 2011, the percentage of Americans working at start-up companies dropped 0.4 percentage point. As Tim Kane observes, “Unfortunately, bureaucratic regulations are growing at the same time start-ups are declining”.
Summary Observations
Social and economic factors contribute to opportunity. The Index of Culture and Opportunity looks at a range of cultural and economic indicators that play a part in opening or closing the doors of opportunity. Strong families and communities, a culture that promotes virtue, limited government, and economic freedom all matter for the future of opportunity in America.
Character matters, on both an individual and a community level. It provides the capacity to maintain the blessings of liberty. As David Azerrad and Ryan Anderson write, “The underlying premise of the Index is that opportunity is not merely the absence of artificially imposed impediments. It is also the capacity to pursue happiness, individually and in community.”
The family centered on marriage plays a critical role in providing the foundation necessary for the individual enjoyment of freedom and pursuit of opportunity. Correspondingly, the breakdown of the most basic institution of marriage has profound repercussions across the indicators reported here. In just one example, Lawrence Mead explains how non-marriage and non-work are intertwined.
Policy incentives influence individual choices and shape the environment in which individuals are able to pursue opportunity. Welfare policy that offers a handout rather than a hand up has discouraged work and marriage. Regulatory and tax burdens are hampering the capacity of entrepreneurs to launch new job-creating ventures.
Focus and leadership make a difference. The majority of the indicators reported here are on the wrong track, but a number of those that are heading in the right direction have this in common: They have received sustained focus across a variety of platforms. The well-documented failures of public education have led to sustained and successful calls for greater educational choice. Four decades of pro-life effort in culture and law correlate with a declining abortion rate. As Kathryn Lopez’s introduction to Section 1 discusses, it is possible to get our culture back on track through hard work, creativity, and concentrated effort to change policy and society.
Policy Implications
Policy should be formulated on the basis of sound principles and data. The indicators included in this Index help to identify obstacles to opportunity in order to help citizens and policymakers focus on cultural efforts and policy solutions that will best address these challenges. The policy implications of the data and commentary contained in this volume include the following:
- Pursue policy that promotes life, marriage, and religious liberty.
- Promote limited government and respect the role of civil society, particularly its norms that are conducive to strong individual and community outcomes.
- Advance welfare reform that encourages self-sufficiency through work rather than dependence on government.
- Promote student-centered education reforms that allow for choice.
- Pursue higher education reform that tackles issues of cost and quality by allowing greater innovation.
- Reduce Americans’ tax burden.
- Pursue tax and regulatory reform to restore an environment that is conducive to entrepreneurial job creation.
Up Next in the Index:
2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity
Culture | Poverty & Dependence | Opportunity
Preface | Introducing the Index of Culture and Opportunity | Overview of 2014 Index | The Blessings of Liberty
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