42 U.S.C. § 12351: Findings and purpose

fundamental changes in the demographics and economics of family life in the United States over the past 20 years have had a profound effect on children and their parents; since 1966, the number of women working outside the home has increased by 92 percent and the number of two earner families has increased by over 50 percent; 61 percent of the children born today will live in a single-parent family before reaching the age of 20, with one out of every three single female heads of households living on income below the Federal poverty level; one out of every four children under the age of 6 in the United States currently lives below the Federal poverty level; over the past 10 years, parents have increasingly come together with other parents to organize family resource and support programs that promote healthy child development and increase parental competency, particularly families at risk; and Federal investment in promoting the development of family resource and support programs will reap long-term benefits for individual families and the nation as a whole. stimulate the development and expansion of family resource and support programs that are prevention oriented; encourage early intervention of such programs with families to ameliorate problem situations before such situations become crises; and assist parents in enhancing their children’s development to ensure that their children enter school prepared and ready to learn.