The promotion of the marital heterosexual family structure by the State as a solution to poverty ought to be regarded, on its face, as a thoroughly obnoxious form of social engineering and religious proselytizing. It is also not clear that this strategy could really bring about a substantial decrease in the poverty rate. When we consider family structure, gender, and race simultaneously, it seems entirely possible that all three variables are interacting in a significant manner where poverty is concerned. It is true that children who are living in American families that are headed by a couple are much less likely to live in poverty than their counterparts who are being raised by a single parent. In 1999 the poverty rate for all families was 13.8 percent, while only 6.3 percent of the families headed by a couple were poor (see Table ii.i). All things being equal, two incomes are better than one in a neoliberal socioeconomic environment in which the disadvantaged citizen is being increasingly obliged to look to his or her wage-earning capacity and familial ties to get by. It makes sense that families with two adults who – theoretically at least – hold jobs that pay living wages and share childrearing and bread-winning duties have more resources at their disposal than the families headed by a single parent.