No it did not...maybe amongst black families, but no other. Perhaps you were confused when I said that I had been pointing this out for ten years..I am an early Freeper from back in 2001.
This economic mayhem for the middle class has been GOING ON since the 80's; I should have been more clear.
It's really quite simple. When Daddy makes enough to provide a better lifestyle than Uncle Sam, there will be marriage...as in anything else in life...follow the money.
It definitely goes back further. The divorce culture was really roaring back into vogue post-WWII (since there was no legal no-fault, a great deal of the divorces were “uncontested”), and the welfare state stuck the knife in deeper. Economic prosperity does not cause strong families; it’s the other way around, and that is why the Founding Fathers stressed religion and private morality, not Mammon.