Them Before Us #076 | How Is Your State Ranked on Marriage & Family? A Conversation with Aaron Baer

Summary

Them Before Us Podcast #076: How Is Your State Ranked on Marriage & Family? A Conversation with Aaron Baer

Introduction

In episode #076 of the Them Before Us Podcast, host Jennifer Friesen engages in a profound discussion with Aaron Baer, President of the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV). The episode centers around CCV's insightful "Hope and a Future Report," which examines the decline of marriage and the fragmentation of family structures across the United States, with a particular focus on Ohio. The conversation delves into the implications of these societal shifts on child poverty, community violence, educational outcomes, and overall national stability. Aaron Baer offers both a critical analysis of current trends and practical solutions aimed at strengthening families through policy and community engagement.

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Guest Introduction and CCV’s Mission

Jen Friesen [00:00]:
Jennifer opens the episode by introducing Aaron Baer, highlighting his role at CCV and the significance of the "Hope and a Future Report." She emphasizes the report's dual focus on identifying problems stemming from declining family structures and proposing actionable solutions.

Aaron Baer [00:48]:
Aaron expresses gratitude towards the podcast and shares his personal connection, mentioning his wife Maria's involvement with the Colson Center. He outlines CCV's mission: "we seek the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the gospel." Baer elaborates on CCV's activities, including lobbying at the Ohio State House and developing state-based solutions to national issues, particularly emphasizing the importance of promoting Christian virtues in public policy.

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Understanding the Family Structure Index

Jen Friesen [03:04]:
Jennifer introduces the Family Structure Index, noting Washington state's ranking and seeking clarification on the methodology and implications.

Aaron Baer [03:25]:
Aaron explains that the Family Structure Index, developed by Professor Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia's Institute for Family Studies in partnership with CCV, evaluates family stability across states. He states, "We wanted to understand how families are doing across America on a state-by-state basis because that'll give some hints as to what is actually important for families to thrive" [04:34]. The index considers marriage rates, fertility rates, and the percentage of children raised in intact homes, with Utah ranking highest and Rhode Island lowest.

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Ohio’s Ranking and National Context

Aaron Baer [03:47]:
Aaron highlights that Ohio ranks 29th out of 50 states, pointing out disturbing trends such as over half of children being raised in non-intact homes. He shares critical statistics: "nationally we are around 1.7 [children per woman], which really brings a lot of negative consequences, not just for the state economically, but … for our happiness and even our mental health" [05:01]. Baer underscores the link between declining fertility rates and societal challenges, including increased child poverty and mental health issues among children from single-parent homes.

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Consequences of Declining Family Structures

Aaron Baer [07:29]:
The conversation shifts to the calculation of replacement fertility rates, clarifying misconceptions about the needed number of children to sustain population levels. Baer asserts, "Take Ohio, in 2023, we had 131,000 deaths and 127,000 live births. If you took abortion out, we would be at replacement levels" [08:24], linking abortion rates directly to population decline.

Jen Friesen [09:53]:
Jennifer suggests reframing the abortion debate by positioning it as a matter of national security and societal well-being, to which Aaron agrees, drawing parallels with China's one-child policy and its impact on fertility rates [09:53].

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Abortion’s Impact and Pro-Life Movement Strategies

Aaron Baer [09:21]:
Baer discusses how abortion contributes to population decline, stating, "One in seven children conceived in Ohio loses their life to abortion" [09:21]. He emphasizes that even for the pro-life movement, promoting marriage is the most effective strategy to reduce abortion rates, highlighting that "81% of women in Ohio that get abortions are single moms" [11:44].

Jen Friesen [14:30]:
Jennifer touches on the emotional and psychological trauma associated with forced pregnancies and abortions, questioning the assumptions held by both sides of the debate.

Aaron Baer [16:47]:
Aaron critiques the pro-life movement's focus post-Roe on "helping women" as inadequately addressing the root causes of abortion. He argues that without addressing the underlying cultural shift towards valuing sexual freedom over family stability, efforts to reduce abortion rates will fall short.

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Marriage Trends and Socioeconomic Factors in Ohio

Jen Friesen [17:14]:
Jennifer brings attention to declining divorce rates and explores their connection to marriage trends.

Aaron Baer [17:14]:
Aaron explains that declining divorce rates are partly due to fewer people getting married overall. He points out that marriage is becoming an "elite institution," more common among college-educated individuals, and posits that promoting marriage among low-income populations is essential for economic and social stability [17:48].

Aaron Baer [19:04]:
Aaron discusses the county-level disparities in Ohio, noting that rural and religiously homogeneous areas like Holmes and Geauga counties exhibit stronger marriage rates, while urban centers like Franklin, Cuyahoga, and Hamilton counties struggle with high rates of single parenthood and child poverty. He illustrates the direct correlation between intact family structures and lower child poverty rates, citing, "91% of kids in New Albany, Ohio, are born into intact homes and you only have a 4% child poverty rate" [22:20].

Jen Friesen [23:42]:
Jennifer links these findings to broader cultural issues, referencing Brad Wilcox's observations on Asian American marriage stability and noting the cultural values around marriage and work.

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Policy Implications and Government’s Role

Aaron Baer [24:22]:
Aaron addresses the role of government in either mitigating or exacerbating family instability through entitlement programs. He argues that current welfare policies often discourage marriage by implementing the "marriage penalty," where dual-income households lose eligibility for benefits, thereby making marriage financially disadvantageous [25:01]. He advocates for restructuring these programs to incentivize marriage as a means to reduce government spending on education, healthcare, and incarceration [25:02].

Jen Friesen [26:18]:
Jennifer echoes Aaron's sentiments about the need for policy reform to support marriage, discussing how financial penalties deter individuals from entering into stable marriages.

Aaron Baer [27:16]:
Aaron counters the argument that marriage should remain solely a religious or personal matter by highlighting the economic necessity of stable family structures for minimizing government expenditure. He states, "When marriage decreases, government has to grow exponentially" [27:16], explaining that policies should encourage marriage to alleviate the burden on state budgets. He further distinguishes between the government's interest in procreative marriages versus same-sex relationships, emphasizing that the former impacts government size and services directly [30:10].

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Cultural Shifts and Church’s Role in Promoting Marriage

Aaron Baer [20:41]:
Aaron stresses that beyond governmental policies, cultural and religious institutions, especially churches, must take an active role in celebrating and promoting marriage. He criticizes Christian churches for not adequately valuing marriage compared to Mormon communities, which, according to him, "celebrate marriage and encourage marriage in the next generation" [20:41].

Jen Friesen [30:59]:
Jennifer appreciates Aaron's breakdown, noting how it equips listeners to engage in meaningful conversations about marriage's role in society.

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Conclusion and Closing Remarks

Aaron Baer [31:25]:
Aaron reiterates the importance of promoting marriage to ensure societal stability and reduce government dependency. He encourages listeners to engage with CCV's work and utilize the findings of the "Hope and a Future Report" to advocate for family-centric policies in their own communities.

Jen Friesen [31:28]:
Jennifer wraps up the episode by thanking Aaron and encouraging listeners to explore the resources provided by the Center for Christian Virtue, emphasizing the podcast's commitment to advocating for children's rights through strengthening family structures.

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Key Takeaways

1. Family Structure Index: A comprehensive measure evaluating the health of family structures across states based on marriage rates, fertility rates, and the prevalence of intact homes.

2. Ohio's Challenges: Ranked 29th, Ohio faces significant issues with declining marriage rates, high single-parent households, and dropping fertility rates, leading to increased child poverty and government expenditure.

3. Cultural Influence: Strong religious communities (e.g., Mormons in Utah) exhibit healthier family structures, highlighting the role of culture and community in promoting marriage.

4. Policy Recommendations: Reforming welfare programs to incentivize marriage can reduce government spending on education, healthcare, and incarceration by fostering stable family environments.

5. Pro-Life Movement’s Strategy: Focusing on promoting marriage as a means to decrease abortion rates and strengthen societal stability rather than solely opposing abortion.

6. Churches’ Role: Religious institutions must actively encourage and celebrate marriage to influence cultural norms and support family stability.

7. Government’s Stake in Marriage: Stable marriages reduce the need for expansive government services, thus promoting both individual liberty and economic efficiency.

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Notable Quotes

• Aaron Baer [05:01]: "Nationally we are around 1.7 [children per woman], and that really brings a lot of negative consequences, not just for the state economically, but ... for our happiness and even our mental health."

• Aaron Baer [09:21]: "One in seven children conceived in Ohio loses their life to abortion."

• Aaron Baer [16:47]: "Murdering your child, a mother killing her own child, even at that age, is more traumatic than going through with the birth."

• Aaron Baer [25:01]: "Most of our welfare programs are not built around encouraging those decisions. Actually, in many ways, they're built around discouraging those decisions."

• Aaron Baer [30:10]: "When marriage decreases, government has to grow exponentially."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the core discussions of episode #076, providing listeners and non-listeners alike with a clear understanding of the challenges facing family structures in Ohio and across the United States, as well as the proposed pathways to foster stronger, more stable families through cultural and policy shifts.

Transcript

[Jen Friesen]

Foreign welcome to the Them Before Us podcast. I'm your host Jen Friesen and today we have a very special guest joining us. Aaron Baer is the president of the center for Christian Virtue. We're diving into an important new report from CCV called the Hope and a Future Report which takes an in depth look at how the decline of marriage and the collapse of the family have contributed to things like rising child poverty, increased violence in our communities and declining educational outcomes across Ohio and America. But more importantly, this report doesn't just highlight those problems. It does talk about practical solutions that lawmakers, churches and community leaders can can do to help strengthen families and restore stability. So Aaron, thanks so much for being here.

[Aaron Baer]

Thanks for having me, Jennifer.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah. So can we start just you telling us a little bit about yourself and how you became president of the center for Christian Virtue and then also for people who don't know, what does your organization do?

[Aaron Baer]

Well, absolutely, at first. Let me just thank you and Katie and them for us for all that you guys do. We're big fans of yours and I'm especially honored because I'm the second bear that has been on the podcast. My wife Maria with the Colson center has been with you guys before and she's also a big fan of yours. But yeah, so CCV center for Christian Virtue we're based here in Columbus, Ohio. We are a state based public policy organization, a Christian state based public policy organization. And our mission is we seek the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the gospel. What that practically looks like is that we do lobbying at the Ohio State House actually where I'm speaking right now, we're looking out the window at the Ohio State House. We're right across the street from it and we develop state based solutions to the problems facing our country. That's one of the things I'm most excited about with this administration in Washington right now is a lot of things are being sent down to the states. The question is what do we do then to kind of restore the direction of our, of our nation? I've been running CCV for almost nine years now. I'm originally from Ohio, worked out in Arizona for some time, was the, worked for the attorney general out there and really am in this work because I think, you know, we see what happens when the Christian voice is silenced in public policy in our country, when our, our perspective is not advanced and a lot of people get hurt. And I think that's one of the things you see in this report is, you know, Our system of government was built on depending on people making virtuous and righteous personal decisions. That maximizes individual liberty. And when people start making bad decisions for themselves, government has to grow. And you see a lot of sort of devastating things flow from that. Um, so.

[Jen Friesen]

So yeah, yeah, that's great. On your website, which is CCV.org we can start here. Because, you know, as a. As someone who lives on the West Coast, I live in Washington state. You know, you have this thing called the Family Structure Index, and it's a map of the United States where you've got everything ranked different numbers. I don't know what the lowest would be. I noticed that Washington is number 22.

[Aaron Baer]

Rhode island, the lowest one in the. In the country road. The state of Rhode island is number 50.

[Jen Friesen]

Oof. Oh, I see. It's being ranked one to 50. Okay, that makes sense. So 22, I guess, is not that bad out of 50, but it's not great. And so tell us a little bit about the Family Structure Index, and then we'll dive into what you guys discovered when you looked closer at Ohio.

[Aaron Baer]

Yeah, absolutely. So really with the Family Structure Index, and this whole report was done by someone named Brad Wilcox, Professor Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia, and the Institute for Family Studies was really a partnership between CCV and ifs. And the concept here was, hey, we want to understand how. What's the status, how families are doing across America on a state by state basis? Because that'll give some hints as to what is actually important for families to thrive. Because really, what the report shows, Jennifer, is that family stability, marriage, you know, kids having that connection to something Katie's very big on with, with you guys, kids having that connection to their biological mother and father creates the most stable environment and allows for the most human flourishing.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

The folks to thrive the most. And when that gets broken, we see a lot of consequences. And so we wanted to see, hey, what is the status of family across the country? And this is something that a lot of groups do in other contexts, right? You always see those. What states have the best education systems? What states are doing the best with the lowest regulation or the best states to start a business? And what I would always say in all of those other state rankings is they are really looking at the fruit of a problem that really has its root in strong families.

[Katie]

Right?

[Aaron Baer]

We're typically measuring when we're looking at things like how is our economy doing, how good is our education system doing? All these types of things, really, all of those things start to fail or Struggle when kids don't have a kids aren't raised in a home with a married mom and dad. And so what Brad and his team with the Institute for Family Studies did is they put together an algorithm, a formula based off of marriage rates, fertility rates, and the percentage of kids raised in intact homes to come up with the state rankings. And you'll see Utah is the state with the highest score on the Family Structure Index. Rhode island is the state with the most struggling families. Ohio is 29th. And there's some interesting things when you dive into those numbers that stand out. I think one of the things, Jennifer, that really was shocking to me is really in most states, around half, if not more than half of kids are raised in homes without a married mom and dad. And then I think the other thing that a lot of folks are just now starting to wake up to is that our fertility rate in America is plummeting. And you know, broadly Speaking, you need 2.1 children born per childbearing age woman in the country to replace your population. And nationally we are around 1.7. And that really, that brings a lot of negative consequences, not just for the state economically, but as Brad has documented in his book Get Married, it really has a lot of consequences for our happiness and even our mental health. Right. Brad's studies have shown the happiest people in America today are married moms, and the second happiest are married dads. And what our report showed just in Ohio, for instance, is that if a child is raised in a non intact home without their married mom and dad there, they're more than twice as likely to struggle with depression and mental health issues. So there's a lot that really comes back to these numbers, these statistics. And what this ranking shows is both what the problem looks like, but also some of the solutions.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah, that's so good. Practical question for a layperson, how are they calculating that people need zero point amount of children? Isn't that so funny? You've always heard that it's like you need 2.5 kids, a house and a dog or whatever.

[Aaron Baer]

Right.

[Jen Friesen]

Funny to me. So, but it's basically like some kind of average, like you need two or more.

[Aaron Baer]

No, you, what you really need is you need one kid that has a really strong personality that amounts for twice the work. That's really where that decimal comes from? No, it's again, it's broadly speaking because it's an average of the number of kids having. That's how you get to that decimal. And so again, like just having you're not actually replacing your population with, with. With how many folks die. Again, take Ohio, for example. Take 2023 in Ohio, in 2023, we had 131,000 deaths in Ohio and we had 127,000 live births.

[Katie]

Right?

[Aaron Baer]

So right there we are not replacing our population through new Ohioans being born.

[Jen Friesen]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

It's the reason why a state like Ohio continues to shrink. And the more devastating thing I'll say to that end, Jennifer, when you throw abortion in there, in that same year, we had 22,000 abortions. Actually, if you just took abortion out of Ohio, if abortion wasn't happening in our state, we would be at replacement levels. But because of that, we are not. And actually, one more point to that end, when you actually look at those numbers, what it actually says is that one in seven children conceived in Ohio loses their life to abortion. Again, Ohio is not some radical pro abortion state. Like, this is just sort of the reality of America today. And it shows where all of these things have their, their root.

[Jen Friesen]

Is that true nationwide? That if we took abortion out, would we not. Would we be replacing ourselves?

[Aaron Baer]

We would be close to it, absolutely, yeah. I mean, and that's, again, this is just one more of the fallout of the sexual revolution.

[Jen Friesen]

Um, so yeah, it'd be so interesting to start using that as maybe people are, but as attacked against abortion is basically say this is a matter of national security, of well being as a nation of existing in the future.

[Aaron Baer]

By all means, you can see, especially when you look at China, how their one child policy, abortion, really can have a devastating impact on your, on your fertility rates and on your ability to sort of perpetuate your society. You know, again, I think that the root of abortion and what we see here is so much that that sexual revolution mentality that is driving folks away from marriage. Honestly, Jennifer, that was one of the other reasons we did this report. The hope in a future report itself doesn't talk about abortion because we want to say, hey, listen, whether you agree with us that abortion is right or wrong, you should care about family, right? If your issue is child poverty, if your issue is drugs, if your issue is education, you know, again, take education. You talk to any inner city public school teacher where they have just collapsing literacy rates and those teachers will tell you these kids are struggling because they have no support at home, right? There's no dad there. It's awful, right? So whether or not you agree with us that, you know, an unborn child is a human life worthy of protecting, you should care about marriage and family. However, if you are pro life, this actually is the issue, the most important thing you can be fighting for right now. And we saw that in Ohio firsthand, because Ohio did pass. We were one of those states that has a constitutional amendment to protect abortion, protect the right to an abortion all the way through a pregnancy, which is a terrible thing. We fought that with everything we could, that kids are going to lose their lives to abortion. I don't even like using the word protect there. But what we found now is, okay, so we can't pass any more laws in Ohio to prohibit abortion. So how are we going to actually try to save lives? Well, 81% of women in Ohio that get abortions are single moms.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And so if we're going to resolve that, we need to get more women married into stable environments so they feel like they can, you know, keep their child. But the other side of that as well, Jennifer, that we really saw, and this is one of the psyche things in America that we have to be dealing with when we were fighting this on the campaign trail. You know, the rape and incest argument was there was the left's and the media's most powerful argument for passing this abortion initiative. And the reality is there's no amount of me convincing you that an unborn child is a human life that's going to make you think that you should keep that child through rape and incest. Even in the cases of rape and incest.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

What the sexual revolution has done has made people think that sex outside of marriage is an inevitability. And I want to keep raping in. I want to keep abortion in my back pocket just in case something bad happens.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

So even if they believe it's the Bill Maher position, even if they believe it's a baby, they're still okay killing it just in case things are too hard.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And this is one of these things that I think the pro life movement has really missed is we've been so focused on, well, if we can just convince America that it's a baby, then they'll want to ban abortion. Well, the reality is, no, if they really see themselves and see their identity or think that lots of people see their identity in their sexual prowess, in their sexual expression, then they have to keep abortion because they need to be able to separate the sexual act from the consequences of the sexual act. And that's one of these things that I think this report really helps reveal, is marriage is the key for us actually saving lives long term for the pro life movement.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah, that's so good. Well, and I had this conversation with another woman we were interviewing and what, what we were talking about is that the idea that abortion is a remedy or a good thing in and of itself is actually, I think, a place we really need to come after it. Because, because people will say, you know, well, do you want someone who's been raped or, or an 11 year old, you know, they take these most extreme examples, right? Do you want them to have to carry a baby to term? And it's like, I don't want a child to have to experience these really hard things or to experience, experience a pregnancy or childbirth. But they're asking it with the. They assume that an abortion is not physically traumatic, is not painful, is not horrifically traumatizing. So they're seeing one thing as this is horrifically traumatizing. How could you force a kid to go through this? An 11 year old, whatever. These extreme examples. And my flip side is, how would you force an 11 year old to go get an abortion?

[Katie]

Right?

[Jen Friesen]

How is that? You know, so, so they just, they have this assumption. But I feel like Christians and conservatives assume that too. And then we only come at it from, well, it is better. It's not as traumatizing, whatever. But you can't, because it's a human life. Which is true, it's a human life. But we have to also just say abortion is horrible for you, right?

[Aaron Baer]

No, that's. Honestly, Jennifer, that's something. Maria, my wife with the Colson center, she wrote about this right after the Dobbs case came down. Who. Because immediately after Dobbs, you saw all of these good, winsome Christians write their think pieces about that. How? Oh, well, now that, you know, Roe was overturned, we need to really step up and help women. Which is so condescending on so many fronts because one, if you look at the pro life movement, it is 80 to 90% pregnancy centers, right? Like the, the actual political side of the pro life movement of actually working to abolish abortion in some form or another is a small percentage of all of the work of the pro life world, right? You go to the March for Life and most of the folks there are either students or pregnancy center workers, right? So we have been helping women. We have been. We have over 150 centers in Ohio alone. But the other side of that, and Maria wrote about this, that's, that's so clear, is that the underlying assumption of that, that now that abortion is, and now that Roe is overturned, now we have to step up and help women. It implies that abortion was ever Helping women in those first place.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And as you said, abortion is a terrible thing. It's not helping them. I don't want that 11 year old, that 10 year old to go through an abortion because that would be traumatic for them. There's, the reality is in that situation, there is no easy path out. And, and that's what we always want is we want the easy path, but there is no easy path. And so both situations are going to lead to hardship. But what unequivocally is true, that murdering your child, a mother killing her own child, even at that age, is more traumatic than going through with the birth. And until we're able to say abortion is not a good in any context, we're not going to be able to win that conversation.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah, yeah. It's so good looking at the, the report itself. So like you said, this, your report focuses on Ohio because that's where you guys are. Also, we've had Brad Wilcox on our podcast to talk about his book Get Married. So that was great. One of the first things I noticed in the report though in Ohio is, you know, divorce rates are declining. I think this is nationally as well. But there's some interesting reasons why divorce rates are declining. Can you go into that a little bit?

[Aaron Baer]

Yeah. You know, ultimately divorce rates are declining because marriage rates are declining.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And so in some ways we do see that as a good thing. Brad writes about that both in his book and in our report, that that's something worth celebrating. Right. That the folks that are opting into marriage are more committed to marriage. And obviously we want to see that as a good thing. But the bottom line is less folks overall are opting into marriage at this point. And as he documents in his book and as we see in the Hope and a Future report, marriage is becoming increasingly an elite institution.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

So really you're, you're more way more likely to get married if you're college educated. And that's why, you know, for low income folks and folks in poverty, what we see is marriage is actually one of the most stabilizing things you can do to get yourself out of poverty and to especially help your kids not live in poverty one day. And that's for, for us, the thing that we're trying to figure out here is how do we restore marriage amongst all Ohioans, especially low income Ohioans, and how do we ultimately, from the governmental side, do away with things that are disincentivizing marriage so we can see those marriage rates increase?

[Jen Friesen]

One of the other interesting things I noticed in the Report that maybe you could talk about is there's definitely looks like some big differences based on just counties in Ohio. And that could be, you know, based on maybe some, you know, communities of color or, you know, you see, more like fatherlessness has really impacted black Americans, it seems like to the greatest extent, I think, of any of kind of the ethnic groups in the United States. And so maybe talk about that, you know, the difference between, you know, does it depend where you live in Ohio for how good things are going to be for you?

[Aaron Baer]

Yeah, you know, I think this also comes across in the Family Structure Index too, on a state by state ranking. And what you really see, and I'll start with the Family Structure Index, then move down into the individual counties in Ohio. What you see in the state rankings is, is how much culture matters.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

It should not be surprising to anyone that Utah is number one in the Family Structure Index because Utah has a very strong Mormon culture.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And I'm a Christian. That's a different faith than mine at Mormonism. But what Mormons do better than Christians do, that comes really clear across in this report is they celebrate marriage and encourage marriage in the next generation. They've captured that social imagination of their kids about what is life about, Right. I think for a lot of folks, even in our good Christian churches today, we subtly buy the American lie that life is about building the biggest barn, materialism, or maybe it's about self actualization even. Just think about the way we talk about college with our kids, right? You should go off to college and go get a job and get stable and then get married, right? Where actually the data says the happiest path and actually the path to the most success and wealth is get married fast, right. And get graduate high school, get married and get a job. And college could be a part of that or maybe not. And that's what we see is actually what builds that most wealth and stability long term. And it's one of the things that really jumps out in this report to us that we're trying to engage the church on is yes, there are certainly things that government can do to address this crisis.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

That and certainly can stop doing that's amplifying this crisis. But really the most important thing we can do to restore marriage and family in America is have our churches and our sort of cultural shift in our attitudes around marriage and family. It really should be a judgment on so many churches, mine included, us included, that we don't celebrate marriage the way even that Mormons do. Right. God gave us marriage as Christians. And it's something we should be celebrating and building up, but we're not. And we can see the actual impact of that. You know, for everybody who is concerned, for every church that's concerned about serving the orphan, the widow, the stranger, all of these types of folks, what the report reveals is actually the most important thing we can be doing is encouraging marriage and family to bring that stability into their lives. So then you zoom down into the county breakdown in Ohio and you see a similar trend in Ohio's counties, as you see in the Hope in a Future report. Where do you see marriage being the strongest? Well, you see marriage being the strongest in counties like Holmes county and Geauga County. What do those counties have? They have strong Amish populations.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And which is a strong religious population. Where do you see the county struggling the most? Well, you see the inner cities, Franklin county, where Columbus is, Cuyahoga county, where Cleveland is, Hamilton county, where Cincinnati is. You see a strong connection between those two. My home counties of Trumbull and Mahoning County. Up in the Youngstown Warren area, you see the highest rates of single parenthood up there.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

So 68% of moms in Youngstown, Ohio, in Mahoney county, don't have married dads in the homes. Right. And you know, not, not coincidentally, you see 50% of kids in Mahoning county or in Youngstown are in poverty. And you see this, there's a chart in the report that shows this straight line down from the higher the rates of kids born in non intact homes, the higher the child poverty, all the way down to towns like New Albany, Ohio, where 91% of kids are born into intact homes and you only have a 4% child poverty rate. These things aren't coincidental. They're very much in a link.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah, well, and it's, it's not that it's about ethnicity either, because like in Brad Wilcox's book Get Married, he talks about Asian Americans as actually one of the most likely people groups to stay married. Which it goes back to your point about culture. And a lot of, a lot of it I think he said, was it wasn't even that they necessarily had these incredible marriages or they rated them very highly. It's just that it was a cultural value, that marriage was not about you being happy. It was about stability for your kids or stability as a family, or your name and honor and things like that. So you stayed married. And it also made me think was. Is J.D. vance from Ohio?

[Aaron Baer]

He is, yeah. You'll notice throughout the report we Have Middletown, Ohio, which is JD's home. Oh, hometown.

[Jen Friesen]

Well, and that's a big thing he focuses on in his book Hillbilly Elegy. He talks, he's unpacking this culture, hillbilly culture, which is again, it's white Americans, but it's this very low socioeconomic situation. But, you know, it's not only it was a single parent homes and a lot of addiction and struggles like that. He also talked about working was not a cultural value. So education and work were not culturally important in that community. And so then you can see the ramifications of that.

[Aaron Baer]

Well, and that's one of the things we're talking to lawmakers about right now on our entitlement side, right? Is, you know, whether it's, it's Medicaid or it's snap, which is food stamps or it's housing subsidies, any of these programs, the question is how are we gearing them towards encouraging people to make healthy, virtuous decisions, Right. And the two healthiest virtuous decisions they can make that are most important are get married and get a job. And the problem is right now, most of our welfare programs are not built around encouraging those decisions. Actually, in many ways, they're built around discouraging those decisions.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

So if most folks are aware of the marriage penalty idea, which is you have two folks who are on welfare say, snap, for example, getting food stamps, and if they get married, their income has now doubled and therefore their subsidy is going to decrease significantly. So it's actually going to cost them to get married. And what's the thing that is actually proven to be the fastest way for them to get off government? Government subsidies and support is getting married. And so that's really the thing that we're trying to challenge lawmakers on is, hey, we want to shrink government, Right. Brad Wilcox and I had a, had an editorial in Fox News a few weeks ago, and this was our whole pitch to Elon Musk, if you will. Hey, we love Doge. We are so excited that we're no longer funding transgender operas in Colombia or whatever other crazy stuff was happening. But ultimately we're going to get to a point where we're not going to have any more of those things that we can cut. And the question and we're still going to have this massive government bureaucracy, so what do we, what do we need to do about it? Well, the fastest way for us to shrink the federal government from here is to get as many people to make healthy decisions which start with marriage and encourage marriage. All we can through our government programs.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah, it's good. Well, I know people who are not getting married because that would mean you lose money you're depending on and it's just sad that it's that way. It should be the opposite. Like you're saying government could do so much to incentivize just by removing the current taxes and a lot of the penalties for, you know, it doesn't, it's not like you have to pay people just stop taking as much of their money basically.

[Aaron Baer]

Right.

[Jen Friesen]

For, for kind of. My final question for you. What would you say to folks who push back and say marriage is just a religious thing, so it's between you and God and your church community, whatever. Government, you know, a lot of even more conservatives I think say, you know, just government should stay out of it. It has no business being in the business of marriage. When we fight about the redefinition of marriage and how government should not have made it, you know, same sex marriage and all these things, they say government shouldn't be involved in all, what would.

[Aaron Baer]

You say that the reality is? When marriage decreases, government has to grow exponentially. There is no getting away from this. Just take again, take Ohio's budget for example. You know, we spend just on what Ohio taxpayers spend, right? Not what we get from the federal government. We're, we're in the process right now of passing our state budget. Most states are like us, they're doing that. Their legislatures are meeting right now and considering their budget. So when I look at the Ohio budget, it's about a, let's say $60 billion state budget just on the Ohio money, right. There's probably another 30 billion that we spend from the feds, but just on state money. When I look at that and I break it out, 88% of that money falls into one of three buckets, right? We educate, we medicate and we incarcerate.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

So 88% of our money falls into one of these three buckets. Education, think K to 12 plus higher education. Medicaid, Think Medicaid. Medicare, health and human services, anything there's. And then incarcerate. Think law and order, think the courts, think police, that kind of stuff, right? So all three of those areas, that's where 88% of the money we spend just in Ohio and Ohio is not special. Every other state, when I was in Arizona, it was very similar.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

What Brad's report shows and what CCB's report shows is that all three of those areas have to grow exponentially when marriage breaks down.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

It Becomes way more expensive to educate and way less effective. The state is less effective at educating when kids don't have a married mom and dad at home.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

Medicaid people are way more likely to be on Medicaid and less able to provide for themselves when they don't come from intact homes. Law and order. You are way more likely to end up in prison.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

Brad chose to report if you're young men that are born into single parent homes are more likely to go to prison than to go to college.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

And so government has to grow when families break down. So government should be doing everything it can to encourage and incentivize marriage because ultimately that's what keeps liberty maximized and that's what keeps government strong. Government has to step in and provide for these folks. So for our libertarian friends out there, that this is the whole reason why we are government is in the marriage business in the first place. That's what made the whole same sex marriage debate completely nonsensical. Government has zero interest. It does not care about my relationship, honestly, with my best friend Joe, who's another guy, or even my relationship with you, Jennifer. Because us being friends does nothing for the society at large. Right. It does nothing. Government does not have to grow if our friendship ends or things like that.

[Katie]

Right.

[Aaron Baer]

But it does care about my relationship with Maria. And why is my relationship with Maria different than my relationship with my best friend Joe or with you? It's because our relationship can and has produced children. And the stability between us that what that provides for our kids allows government to not have to step in. That's what made same sex marriage nonsensical is that, hey, no matter how much I might love somebody of the same sex, our relationship can never do something that is going to contribute to the growth or shrinking of government services or programs. Yeah. And, and that, that's why that whole debate was as much affection or love we as we have for each other doesn't mean has no bearing on the size and scope of government, but it does with my wife because of the procreative act and that's why government's in the marriage business in the first place.

[Jen Friesen]

Yeah. Oh, it's so good. That's. Yeah. What a great breakdown of it. Well, now people, you know what to say next time someone tries to make that argument. Well, Aaron, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for all the work that you guys are doing over at the center for Christian Virtue. We'll put the links to the report and the family index structure so everyone can see where their state ranks and they can look at the report and just think through, you know, some of those ideas and solutions for their own state as well.

[Aaron Baer]

Absolutely. Appreciate it.

[Jen Friesen]

All right, everyone, thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Check out the show notes. Go check out their work over at the center for Christian Virtue. Thanks so much for joining the Them Before Us movement.