THE MYTH ABOUT WELFARE MOMS

WHO'S THE LATEST PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1? THE unwed mom. "The epidemic of illegitimacy is our most serious social problem," says Bill Clinton. "It drives everything else," says Charles Murray, the conservative sociologist--"crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, welfare, homelessness."

What to do? Most everyone, it seems, has the same answer: cut off payments to mothers who have additional kids while on welfare. "There's no question," the President said in 1993, that reducing welfare benefits "would be some incentive for people not to have dependent children out of wedlock."

"Nonsense," says Daniel Moynihan, the New York Senator and a leading expert on social...

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