The social science experts tell us there are three simple rules to live by to reach the middle class: 1) Graduate at a minimum from high school. 2) Get a full-time job. 3) Wait until you are at least 21 to get married and have kids.

This last rule deserves your attention because parents are increasingly breaking it, tragically setting their children up to fail.

Out of wedlock birth rates are spiraling out of control. To show you just how much the country has changed during my lifetime, in 1965 the birth rate for unmarried women was under 8%. By 2015, the rate had risen to over 40%.

The children of out of wedlock births are frequently raised in poor, single-parent households, which puts them at a major disadvantage in life. We are talking about millions of kids being negatively impacted here. 31% of children today are not living in two-parent households, most of whom are being raised by single mothers. The poverty rate for single-mother families in 2016 was over 35%, five times the rate of married-couple families.

What happens to those born out of wedlock and raised by single mothers? Simply put, a vicious cycle of generational poverty where the American Dream gets further and further out of reach.

The research shows that those born out of wedlock are at a greatly increased risk of health, developmental, emotional and behavioral issues at all stages of life.

These issues contribute to poorer school performance, increased odds of drug and alcohol usage and a greater propensity to engage in violent or criminal behavior.

The end result is that it is very hard for such children to follow the three simple rules to enter the middle class – they get stuck in the same trap as their parents.

Consider the plight of kids born out of wedlock:

• The odds of dropping out of high school rather than graduating increase.

• It may be harder to attain a job — even if graduating from high school — if such individuals made poor grades, had substance abuse issues and/or a criminal record.

• As adults, such individuals may be deemed less desirable or uncommitted partners, due to lack of employment, or any of the other issues mentioned; therefore, it becomes more likely that they too will have children without getting married.

In the end then, the next generation will have to deal with the same problems over again.

The proof is in the pudding: Children living in single-parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience poverty as adults relative to children from intact married homes.

The importance of the nuclear family just cannot be emphasized enough.

One thing I have yet to mention is that if you are a struggling single mother or otherwise finding it difficult to make ends meet, you are likely to turn to welfare programs for support.

There is a cost to these benefits. Dependency on the state hurts personal growth by making one dependent, and often saps individuals of their morale and dignity.

FDR put it best in his 1935 State of the Union Address during the Great Depression – an address it is hard to imagine any prominent Democrat delivering today:

Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.

This is why the “workfare” reform passed in the ‘90s – and gutted during the Obama years – which tied government assistance to employment, was so positive.

It might shock you to know that our government actually perpetuates the vicious cycle I have described by incentivizing the formation of single-parent households through the way it structures benefit programs.

Did you know that there are marriage penalties built into means-tested welfare programs, from food stamps and public housing, to day care and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families?

As one study explains it:

The current welfare system may be conceptualized best as a system which offers each single mother … a “paycheck.”… She will continue to receive her “paycheck” as long as she fulfills two conditions: (1) she must not work; and (2) she must not marry an employed male…. [Welfare] has converted the low-income working husband from a necessary breadwinner into a net financial handicap. It has transformed marriage from a legal institution designed to protect and nurture children into an institution that financially penalizes nearly all low-income parents who enter into it. [i]

It is simply immoral that our government would condemn future generations to hardship and poverty through these programs.

It is an American Nightmare to think that every day children are being born with the odds stacked against them.

If we want to fix this issue as a society, we need to rethink our priorities.

We need to change our culture to one that emphasizes the nuclear family, and responsible parenting.

We need to get government out of the business of discouraging nuclear family formation.

The American Dream must be in reach for every child.

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[i] See The Heritage Foundation’s study “Why Expanding Welfare Will Not Help the Poor.”