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Marriage intervention programs, which cost millions of dollars every year focusing on poor and colored couples, do not really work, a new study  found.

According to a study, which was conducted by a Binghamton University researcher and published in the current issue of American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association, many of marriage intervention programs, which are based on the research data which has been gathered from white and middle-class marriages, don't work when applied to poor couples or couples of color.

"Initially, the rationale for these programs came from policy makers and scholars, who homed in on the association between unmarried parents and poverty that is plainly obvious in the data," says Matthew D. Johnson, associate professor of psychology at Binghamton according to Science Daily. "This association led George W. Bush to make the promotion of healthy marriages a central plank of his domestic policy agenda, resulting in the implementation of the Healthy Marriage Initiative. Barack Obama endorsed these initiatives, both as presidential candidate and as president. Now that the data on the success of these programs has started to roll in, the results have been very disappointing."

According to Johnson, many of the intervention programs are not based on scientific grounds and run unchecked.

He gives examples of two recent studies which assessed the benefits of federal programs to promote healthy marriage, and if they needed to be improvised. For the study, 5000 low-income unmarried couples, either expecting or who recently had their first child were examined.

Apparently, out of the eight cities that were focused, the results indicated that six cities had no effect, one city had small beneficial effect and another one city had only damaging effects.

Also, he cited the outcome of another study which focused on 5,395 low-income married couples. The findings suggested that couples who received the intervention experienced small improvements in relationship satisfaction, communication and psychological health but no significant changes in relationship dissolution or cooperative parenting.

Thus, Johnson says that interventions are largely ineffective and also don't not come cheap. The cost on average is estimated around $9,100 per couple.

The possible explanation for this phenomenon according to Johnson is that the programs which are based on scientific findings were initially studied with middle-class couples but are targeted towards poor couples by the federation. Also, when compared to the monetary needs of poor couples, they do not seem to prioritize their relationship improvement.

"There is evidence that suggests poor women want to be married and understand the benefits of healthy marriages," Johnson says. "But earning enough for basic household expenses, keeping their children safe and working with their children's overburdened schools are much more urgent concerns, making the idea of focusing on marriage seem self-indulgent, if not irrelevant, to many poor parents. When faced with a myriad of social issues, building intimate relationships is just not high on their priority lists."

However, in spite of the current marriage intervention programs seeming ineffective, Johnson does not suggest the federal government to stop funding the intimate relationship research. Instead, a more multifaceted approach is proposed that would focus on easing the stress of poor families and also, funding for more rigorous basic research should help.

"We just don't have solid predictors for relationship satisfaction for poor couples and couple of color, let alone whether the current marriage models apply," Johnson says.

He further recommends National Institutes of Health as the perfect place to coordinate and sponsor the research. "It has a long history of using scientific rigor in decision-making and it would certainly help in achieving the type of results that we're looking for from these initiatives," Johnson notes.

"If we are going to continue these initiatives, let's at least make certain that we are assessing the effectiveness of the programs and learning from our mistakes," Johnson says. "Improving marriages is a worthy goal and one shared by Democrat and Republican administrations alike. The key now is to get that same bipartisan support for improving the research and programs that target poor couples. With the renewed focus on the federal budget, the timing is just right."