Jonathan Rauch cites Isabel V. Sawhill, a liberal, and a former Clinton administration official, who says we've

got to stop thinking of people as passive victims of the economy and whatever the social safety net provides. Liberals have too often emphasized the income-to-behavior link without also recognizing that there's a behavior-to-income link as well.

"" Her research show that if the poor worked full-time, got married, stayed in school, and stopped at two kids, the poverty rate would drop to less than 4 percent. But at the same time,

More kids are born into high-risk homes, with a single mother who dropped out of high school, an often absent father, fitful employment. More kids are also born into low-risk homes, where married parents with college degrees earn high incomes. Fewer kids are born in the middle, to married parents with high school degrees and at least one full-time job -- the sort of home that formed the backbone of the postwar middle class. "In other words," Sawhill writes, "as a result of changes in work and family patterns, today's children are getting a much less equal start in life than the children who were born a few decades ago."

(link via Eugene Volokh)