Social Capital, and helping the working class live the American Dream

“There is a growing social capital divide between the well educated and affluent, and those with fewer skills and lower wages. What might bridge this gap?”

I wrote here before about the need for a Social Capital Campaign. Americans’ trust in their big institutions–including the federal government and mass media–has been in free fall among voters of both parties for some while now. I noted how public trust ranked below upper middle-income countries like Colombia, China, Mexico, and Turkey. Just as disturbing, the decline in trust among Americans along party lines, to the point that members of one party views members of the other as the greatest threat to America’s future.

Many have been perplexed as to how this has come about. But perhaps the collapse of trust in America is related to the collapse of social capital, as documented by academics.

It was for this reason that we started the Social Capital Campaign last Fall to promote social capital and the institutions that create it to elite opinion formers and D.C. policy makers. If we can build social capital, perhaps we can reverse the decline of trust choking our national conversation.

Next week, the campaign launches its first report written by Brad Wilcox, Chris Bullivant, and Peyton Roth at an event at Hillsdale DC campus. The report notes a growing divide between the affluent and the working class when it comes to family formation. The better off and well educated are more likely to be married, the working class more likely to be single, cohabiting, and unmarried.

This finding might well be at the heart of the social capital collapse that we are seeing. Social capital–the rich network of relationships we need as children and as adults–starts with the home. I was struck by one paragraph in particular:

“A recent study by Richard Reeves found that the chances of upward economic mobility are different for low-income children of married versus unmarried parents. Four-out-of-five children born into the bottom income quintile who were raised by married parents had risen out of that range by adulthood. In contrast, those raised by a never-married single mother had only a one-in-two chance of doing the same.”

Social capital–and that uniquely generated by a stable, married family– has a big impact on getting you out of poverty. It is not the other way around. Stable, married family life isn’t just for the wealthy because you need money to do it. It’s a critical part of why they are better off. Social capital helps create capital.

The American Dream is immensely simple. Let’s not make it difficult for those on low income. Americans aspire to get educated, find work, raise a family, and have meaningful involvement in their local communities - perhaps through church or volunteering. Also to participate in our democracy at election times (but once an election is done for politics to leave them alone!) 

The policies published next week by the Social Capital Campaign are focused on contemporary problems, and point to ways that the federal government can either get out of the way, or help build social capital. The team have worked to look at problems first, then the solutions. 

The report’s solutions are designed to make sure that those who are in the lowest income brackets in this country are not denied access to that institution that provides so much health, hope, and happiness to us all - the stable family.