Santorum Addresses Poverty Rate Among Black Americans

In tonight’s GOP debate, Juan Williams addressed the fact that the poverty rate in the African-American community is at 25 percent, asking Rick Santorum, “Given the crisis situation among a group of historically disadvantaged Americans, do you feel the time has come to take special steps to deal with the extraordinary level of poverty afflicting one race of Americans?”

Santorum pointed to a study by the Brookings Institute that

found that if Americans do three things, they can avoid poverty. The three things are:

--work
--graduate from high school
--get married before you have children

While he says this study presents a huge opportunity, he claims the Obama administration is instead focused on policies and programs that don’t promote abstinence or marriage as methods for avoiding poverty. He said, “The problem is neutrality ends in poverty. Neutrality ends in choices that hurt people’s lives. This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices not to tell them what the good choice is. That is absolutely unconscionable. ”