Bloomberg: Unwed fathers boost poverty

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a divorced, billionaire dad, said Tuesday that unwed fathers increase poverty and the government should take steps to get them back with their families.

The potential presidential candidate who maintains he's not outlined his prescription to fighting poverty in a speech at the National Press Club.

The mayor said welfare reform in the 1990's was driven largely by pushing single poor mothers into the workforce, but that to further reduce poverty, government must now turn its attention to fathers by withholding tax refunds from those who don't pay child support and increasing tax credits for low-income parents.

"Fathers have been missing from the table," said the mayor, a divorced father of two who made a fortune creating an eponymous financial data firm. "We have to do more to connect fathers to jobs and to their families."

Bloomberg wants to broaden eligibility for the earned income tax credit, or EITC. The mayor wants to make more single tax filers eligible for the credit, raising the income ceiling for the credit from $12,000 a year to $18,000.

He also called for an end to the so-called "marriage penalty" for the credit, which offers less money to married people than singles.

Making those changes, he argued, would push more low-income fathers back to their families, resulting in less poverty.

In New York, Bloomberg's changes would affect nearly half a million people. Nationwide, it would make 10.5 million newly eligible for the tax credit, at a cost of about $8.5 billion to the government.

The mayor argued it is time to experiment with new ways to reduce poverty, including a novel effort he has launched to pay city students for passing tests or good attendance, and pay others to go to the doctor.

Bloomberg said the idea, based on a similar effort in Mexico, is worth trying, even if it fails.

"You have to be willing to stick your neck out, I think, on policies where results are unknown. I don't know whether this program will work," he said.