The prescience of Pat Moynihan

In the mid-1960s, a social scientist noted something ominous that came to be called “Moynihan’s Scissors”: Two lines on a graph crossed, replicating a scissors’ blades. ✧ The descending line charted the decline in the minority male unemployment rate. The ascending line charted the simultaneous rise of new welfare cases. ✧ The broken correlation of improvements in unemployment and decreased welfare dependency shattered confidence in social salvation through economic growth and reduced barriers to individual striving.

Read more at the New York Post
(Hat tip: KimR)