Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024
Did Eric Hovde say single parenthood leads to poverty and drug addiction?
Running for U.S. Senate in 2012, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde lamented the number of children "born out of wedlock," saying it is "a direct path to a life of poverty. There’s been numerous studies that show that it leads to higher drug rates.”
Hovde is running against U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., in November 2024.
A Baldwin ad excerpted Hovde's comments and claimed he "thinks if you have a single mom, you're going to be poor or a drug addict."
Hovde’s campaign said that’s not what Hovde thinks and that he was alluding to federal data showing single-parent households linked to poverty and drug abuse.
Studies show a correlation between single-parent families and poverty and adolescent drug abuse.
Higher-income people are much more likely to marry, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- SoundCloud Eric Hovde on AM 1360 WTAQ with Jerry Bader by Eric Hovde
- Team Punchbowl News Baldwin ad features kids raised by single moms
- Google Docs Eric Hovde campaign email, Aug. 14, 2024
- Substance use & misuse Family Structure and Adolescent Drug Use: An Exploration of Single-Parent Families
- MDPI Family Structure, Unstructured Socializing, and Heavy Substance Use among Adolescents
- University of Texas Connection Between Single Parenting and Adolescent Substance Use, Depression Strongest Among the Most Advantaged Children
- Annie E. Casey Foundation Child Well-Being in Single-Parent Families
- National Women's Law Center National Snapshot: Poverty Among Women & Families in 2022
- Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Poverty status of children by family structure
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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