8 ms·
Statistically though, married people have more money. "married women can pay as much as $1 million less than their single counterparts over a lifetime" "marri
by combatentropy 8y ago
Statistically though, married people have more money.
"married women can pay as much as $1 million less than their single counterparts over a lifetime"
"married men between 28 and 30 years old earn around $15,900 more a year in individual income compared to their single counterparts, while married men between 44 and 46 years old make $18,800 more than single men of the same ages"
+ other benefits
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-being-married-makes-you-more-successful-2016-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-being-married-makes-you-...
- philwelch 8y agoDo married people have more money, or do more financially secure people get married?
- thedaemon 8y agoIt's cheaper to live with someone and split bills than live alone and pay all of the bills by yourself. So yes, married people have more money in general.
- sov 8y agoThat's both a fact and not an answer to the question he's asking. For example, unmarried people can live together and split the bills. The above poster isn't asking if it's cheaper to live together with someone--they're asking if selection bias causes it to look that way. That is, whether or not there's sufficient distinction between single folk, long-term non-married split-the-bills relationships, and marriage.
- detaro 8y agoMany people still are living together and splitting bills without being married, so it's not all that relevant to the question.
- nightski 8y agoIt's pretty relevant if married people are more likely to be living together and splitting bills, which is probably the case.
- astura 8y agoNot only that, but married people have lower costs vs the same two people simply cohabiting. Lower insurance rates (home, auto) (usually) lower health insurance rates (family plan rather than two single plans). My company doesn't even charge a premium for putting your non-working spouse on your plan. (usually) Tax benefits
- mrrsm 8y agoYou don't have to be married to live with someone else. That is why many people get a roommate, you split the bills and save more money.
- EADGBE 8y agoThe second one; marriage isn't free. Even at the courthouse.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- smegger001 8y agoWhen my wife and I married we made a profit on our wedding but we set a reasonable budget for it.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoI would love to know how you made a profit on it. (That's not a snarky question at all - I have a child likely to get married next year, and I would genuinely like to know.)
- sjg007 8y agoGuests give money to the newly weds in lieu of gifts.
- EADGBE 8y agoYou could make a profit by reduced tax liability. Get married in a courthouse around the end of the year, before the year of your wedding. The following year, have your ceremony. You extend your Married Filing Jointly status to the previous year you were going to originally take credit for it. That's my best guess though, and depends on your incomes.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoMarried people sharing a household retain more of their income (so have more money) than non-married people who are each managing their expenses. Many bills (like utilities) often have a base component and a variable component, you pay only one base component if you live in the same house. Rents for two studio apartments are greater than the rents for a single bedroom apartment, two one bedroom apartments go for more than one 2 bedroom apartment. A chunk of that is the shared square footage of bathrooms, kitchen, Etc. Food costs in bulk are lower than food costs in single serving quantities. It is more cost effective to cook for two than it is to cook for one (save on energy costs and food) Yes, being married (not having kids), will give you access to more money than you would have if you remain single.
- philwelch 8y agoIs there a separate effect for marriage over and above cohabitation?
- ChuckMcM 8y agoI don't know. But I would speculate that if such an effect existed it would be tied to a shared financial outcome for the pair vs two unrelated people cohabiting. There should also be a secondary effect on savings (if they were combined) where the compounding of interest would work more effectively on a larger principle.
- bunderbunder 8y agoDepending on your relative incomes, the difference in your total tax liabilities can be enough to fully fund an IRA; maybe more. Things like health and car insurance can cost less for a married couple than they do for two individuals, especially if your state doesn't have a domestic partnership law. Stuff like that can add up surprisingly quickly.
- ben_jones 8y agoIs it worth it though? A married man may feel the need to provide for his family and make career choices that are detrimental to his family and himself in order to do so.
- magic_beans 8y agoThis is a very narrow view that assumes the man's partner is not contributing.
- samhain 8y agoDoes it matter if they are contributing if they'll divorce you after you lose your job or don't out-earn them? Some people's love is very much conditional.
- SilasX 8y agoBut that doesn't establish whether it's more "competent/conscientious/whatever" people being more likely to marry, vs the marriage itself causing higher market productivity.
- combatentropy 8y agoWell, either the marriage itself causes more productivity, or there are fewer competent and conscientious people alive in America today.
- SilasX 8y agoIf you're talking about falling marriage rates, then that's still not true either; the benefits of marriage may fall too (and still would be irrelevant to the point about past correlations between marriage and income).
- yitianjian 8y agoQuestion is correlation though. Is it likelier for people who are married (perhaps correlating with more responsible) to hold better positions? Or have higher pressure to make more money and thus act on that? Also, in US and Canada, there are significant tax benefits to being married.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoThat’s a common assumption, but for double income earning couples, getting married will frequently increase your tax liability. (In the us at least)
- bunderbunder 8y agoFor middle income folks, it's more likely to help than to hurt. If you're in the bottom 20% or the top 10%, then you're likely to be penalized if you're a dual income family and rewarded if you're a single income family. If you're between those two extremes, it can't hurt and might help. nice visualization here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/16/upshot/marriage-penalty-couples-income.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/16/upshot/marria...
- nwallin 8y agoA cynic could interpret the first bullet point to mean "a married woman gets $1 million from her husband" and "a married man needs to work overtime in order to come up with the million dollars he needs to give to his wife". Regardless, I don't think your link is evidence that married people have more money. Dual income no kids couples certainly do, but single income double kids families are just... poor.
- devit 8y agoAnother possible explanation is that unmarried people are likely to spend more time and effort pursuing new relationships instead of making money.