Moynihan Repeats Call of 1965 for National Policy on Families

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan on Sunday reiterated his call of 20 years ago for a national policy to preserve the traditional family structure.

In remarks prepared for delivery today and Tuesday as part of the Godkin Lectures at Harvard University, the New York Democrat said: “Although no action was taken at that time (1965), subsequent developments confirmed the forecast that there would be a rise in welfare dependency and family instability.”

In 1965, Moynihan, then an assistant secretary of labor, wrote a controversial report asserting that single-parent families, illegitimacy and poverty were largely black family problems.

Society Affected

Now, however, he says that the whole society has been affected.

Moynihan had said in 1965: “A national family policy need only declare that it is the policy of the American government to promote the stability and well-being of the American family; that the social programs of the federal government will be formulated and administered with this object in mind.”

Five years later, Moynihan coined the phrase “benign neglect” to describe what should be America’s stand on racial policies. His critics attacked the statement and said it sounded as if he were advocating the neglect of black problems.

He said then and reiterates now that he meant that the Richard M. Nixon Administration should stop speaking about the blacks.

Poverty Linked to Families

In his speech for today, Moynihan is saying: “Poverty is now inextricably associated with family structure. Half of all poor persons live in female-headed households.

“During the 1970s, owing in large measure to government transfer programs under Social Security, the problem of poverty greatly diminished among the aged, but intensified among the young.