7 ms·

Divorce rates in America soar 34% during Covid; surge not unexpected

52 points by mrfusion 6y ago

troughway 6y ago
Can’t tell if this is a submarine post but that’s nothing. If they have the balls to announce it, wait til you hear what the suicide rates will be by EOY.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  Who is they?
- m0zg 6y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm Between this, ruined economy, and people dying due to lack of access to "elective" (but not really) medical care, it'll be pretty clear that "lockdowns" are not free of cost. Sweden looks smarter with every passing day.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    Who was saying "lockdowns" are free of cost? Was that ever seriously argued?
    - twblalock 6y ago
      > Who was saying "lockdowns" are free of cost? Was that ever seriously argued? I've seen a lot of people argue that the economic damage would have been the same whether we locked down or not, which is effectively the same argument.
      - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
        There are definitely people who think both of those things are true, but you could also argue that the economic damage would have been the same and also that there would have been other costs (e.g. losses to individual autonomy, lost social connections / harms to community, resulting stress and trauma, etc. etc. )
        twblalock 6y ago
        > but you could also argue that the economic damage would have been the same I really doubt that. Look at how people were behaving until the day the lockdowns began. Look at how people are behaving now. They aren't afraid of going to bars and restaurants and shops. There is no good reason to believe that they wouldn't have behaved the same way the entire time, if the lockdowns had not intervened. It's obviously true that the economy would have been damaged with or without the lockdowns. It's entirely different to claim that the damage without lockdowns would have been as bad as the damage with lockdowns.
        watwut 6y ago
        Restaurants are waaay emptier then they used to be. What are you talking abou?
        twblalock 6y ago
        They aren't entirely empty though, are they? Yet during the lockdowns it was illegal to go to restaurants. Some customers are better than no customers. Ask any restaurant owner if they would prefer lockdowns to the current state of affairs. Again, it's not like the economy would not have been damaged either way, but it's obvious that the lockdowns made the economic damage worse.
        klyrs 6y ago
        OTOH we're ordering in like never before
        mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
        @twblalock - can't reply to your reply so replying here instead. I also doubt it and wouldn't argue it myself, I was just pointing out that making that argument need not imply that you think there are no other costs, i.e. those arguments are not equivalent.
      - berdario 6y ago
        Sweden: 8% GDP drop countries that locked down early: China: 3% GDP increase Vietnam: 2% GDP increase New Zealand: 2% GDP drop Croatia: 15% GDP drop Denmark: 7% GDP drop Norway: 6% GDP drop (obviously, the numbers cannot be easily compared since they might refer to slightly different periods, but all of these include Q2 2020) From these numbers, it's not obvious at all that not locking down would actually be beneficial for the economy. In fact, except for a few outliers like Croatia (disproportionately impacted by the drop in tourism revenue, I presume) it seems that locking down prevented even steeper losses.
        twblalock 6y ago
        These numbers need to be compared to the numbers in the same country for the previous year. For example, in China a 3% increase is actually a regression, because they did 6% in 2019. Even that isn't enough, because we don't have the numbers for each country if it didn't lock down. It's all hypothetical. What would Norway's GDP growth rate have been without a lockdown, for example? The answer is a number. It's unknowable. People claiming that things would have been as bad, or worse, have zero evidence to back them up. People like me who say it would not have been as bad have evidence based on observed consumer behavior which was clearly curtailed during the lockdown and improved after.
        m0zg 6y ago
        I hate break it to people, but C19 is not going anywhere and this is not over yet, especially in countries/locales where there were very few infections. Meanwhile, Sweden had no new cases yesterday.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - berdario 6y ago
    Sweden's handling of the pandemic has been a catastrophe, causing the death of thousands of people. If you look at the numbers of countries that had a decent pandemic response with lockdowns... like Vietnam, Croatia, New Zealand. These 3 countries account for 242 deaths. Sweden alone accounts for 5800, almost 25 times as much as those 3 countries combined! Sweden looks good only in comparison of other countries that locked down only after it was too late (e.g. UK, it was several weeks ahead of the curve, and it totally squandered that advantage). There's something to be said for Sweden's population managing to socially distance a bit without being compelled by law enforcement. But that doesn't help the economy anyhow, since they also got a 8% drop in their GDP.
    - taneliv 6y ago
      Also, those three countries have combined population of 105+ million. Sweden has 10.3 million. Quick napkin calculation suggests a 244-fold death rate per capita.
    - TearsInTheRain 6y ago
      How can you reasonably compare an isolated island country like New Zealand with anyone else?
      - berdario 6y ago
        Croatia is not an island, Vietnam is not an island. I included multiple countries exactly to pre-empt straw man objections like those.
- nafey 6y ago
  What do you mean by submarine in this context?
  - dang 6y ago
    It's a reference to PG's old essay about PR pieces placed as media stories. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=paulgraham.com%20submarine&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  This is a submarine post? Bollocks. Hell, the domain of the link is clearly a law firm's news page, with links directly back to the law firm itself (Rose Law Group). Nothing obfuscated about this, thus failing the submarine criteria. Just plain ole brand-building blog post stuff, standard "insightful" but-also-clickbate stuff we see all the time on HN.
claydavisss 6y ago
My employer has endorsed BLM, an organization that has a publicly stated goal of minimizing the nuclear family. Welcome to the new Establishment.
jdminhbg 6y ago
The source for this statistic is sales data from an online legal forms website, originally here: https://legaltemplates.net/resources/personal-family/divorce-rates-covid-19/ https://legaltemplates.net/resources/personal-family/divorce... I won't be surprised if numbers like this end up panning out, but I don't think this is much of a source.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  Yeah, all of the headline, article, and source seem to be junk here. This is a law firm publishing an online "newspaper" named after itself, running a news story with a headline that misinterprets a quote from their own employees. They said that their sales were up 34%, not that divorce rates went up 34%!
01100011 6y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Reform alimony now. Force consistent rules at the federal level. Make childless divorces straightforward and fair. Eliminate the notion that a former spouse is responsible for maintaining a 'standard of living' established during the marriage. If two adults want to part ways, make them responsible for being adults. To anyone not married, please understand what you are agreeing to by getting married. It is a legally binding contract that has nothing to do with romanticized notions of true love. There is an industry of people looking to profit from you and exploit you. Be extremely careful who you enter into that contract with.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Plus the Trump tax “cuts” actually removed the tax deductibility of alimony from the payer, and made it tax free for the recipient. So if you make $150,000, and pay $65,000 of that in alimony to your ex, your ex can end up with a higher net income.
  - bradenb 6y ago
    This actually is a broken part IMO. I’ve read that it actually just hurts both parties because a judge still must try to maintain an equivalent QOL but since alimony is paid from post-tax income now they cannot afford as much so less is taken. Likewise, even though it is tax-free for the recipient, since less is taken they often end up with less. I can’t remember where I read this but I’ll see if I can track down a source.
    - kilburn 6y ago
      It makes sense. Income taxes are progressive, which means you pay (percentually) more the more you earn. Let's see an example. Say that the payer earns 120k pre-tax. Now: a) If you tax the recipient the judge orders a 60k/60k split. After the split both parties get taxed for 60k, which lands them on the 22% marginal tax rate bracket. In the end each party effectively pays 11k in taxes, and hence gets 49k post-taxes. b) If you tax the earner they pay taxes first, hitting the 24% tax rate bracket and effectively paying ~29k in taxes. So you spit the remaining 91k and each party gets 45.5k post-taxes. Definitely a lose-lose. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Marginal_tax_rates_for_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...
helsinki 6y ago
I had a child with my fiancé six weeks ago. We lived together throughout COVID and even before, but four weeks after our daughter’s birth, she told me she was leaving and someone was picking them up shortly. What happened afterwards is omitted for legal reasons. It has been the worst two weeks of my life. We have not spoken since the day they left and I have not seen my daughter. I should note that it takes two to tango. I could have done more to prevent it from happening. I could have done a lot better, but I just didn’t realize the fragility of our situation. I cannot wait to hold my daughter again.
- bladegash 6y ago
  Hang in there. Been through it myself and it was an awful experience. However, nearly four years later and everything has changed in my life for the better. Don’t allow her to make you feel like you have no rights or role within your daughter’s life, take some time to determine how important staying involved is to you, and if it is important, don’t give up.
  - helsinki 6y ago
    Thank you - this is helpful to read. I didn’t think anything could hurt the mind and heart so much.
    - bladegash 6y ago
      There's nothing else like it and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. That being said, you always have a choice with how you perceive your circumstances, the story/narrative you tell to yourself about what happened, and further how you use all this to create a new life for you and your daughter. Take time to grieve the loss(es), but if you get a bit stuck, don't hesitate to ask for help (e.g., from a therapist, doctor, minister, friends, family, etc.). Someone shared with me a metaphor during my divorce which I found helpful, so who knows, maybe it will help you as well: Imagine your house being destroyed by a natural disaster. It sucks, you have to start over, and you have to cope with a lot of loss. Eventually, you get to the point where you're ready to build a new house. Only this time, you get to pick out what the new house looks like. You get to pick the decorations, the color of the paint, the fixtures, etc. It may not seem like it when you're in the immediate aftermath of the house being destroyed, but eventually, you build a house that is exactly the way you wanted/needed it, and maybe wouldn't have done otherwise if not for the natural disaster. It took hard work, pain, and perseverance, but you ended up even better than where you started. No one else did it for you. You made that happen.
asperous 6y ago
I looked on google trends and Oregon's stat page and couldn't confirm that its "surging": https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/BirthDeathCertificates/VitalStatistics/Pages/Divorce-Data.aspx https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/BirthDeathCertificates/VitalSt... https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=%22how%20to%20file%20for%20divorce%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
- Drunk_Engineer 6y ago
  It isn't surging. A company selling downloadable "legal templates" is claiming a 34% increase in sales. This is a clickbait PR stunt masquerading as news.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    I'm inclined to agree. Assuming they aren't advertising more or some other obvious factor, people are generally a) stuck at home on electronic devices, b) afraid to go out to many places, and c) loss of income. Of course an online DIY divorce template seller is going to see sales rise.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Well, partially. Divorce isn’t instant, legally or logistically. If divorce was going to spike, you’d expect leading indicators to rise in the weeks and months before hand, as couples begin to move from the “thinking about it” stage to the “printing paperwork” stage.
- elsonrodriguez 6y ago
  Look at the submitter's post history.
flexie 6y ago
I strongly doubt this, and especially the high percentage. Apparently, the numbers are based on online sale of legal templates. Maybe that took off, just like e-commerce in general.
aidenn0 6y ago
Abuse of spouses and kids is also up. That's typical anytime unemployment goes up.
archer101214 6y ago
I caught my wife of 17 years with another woman 20 years younger than her. We have 8 kids together. She said she loves her and can't stop thinking of her. I'm giving her space but I don't think we are going to make it and it just kills me.

52 points by mrfusion 6y ago

Can’t tell if this is a submarine post but that’s nothing. If they have the balls to announce it, wait til you hear what the suicide rates will be by EOY.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
Who is they?
m0zg 6y ago
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm Between this, ruined economy, and people dying due to lack of access to "elective" (but not really) medical care, it'll be pretty clear that "lockdowns" are not free of cost. Sweden looks smarter with every passing day.
- 01100011 6y ago
  Who was saying "lockdowns" are free of cost? Was that ever seriously argued?
  - twblalock 6y ago
    > Who was saying "lockdowns" are free of cost? Was that ever seriously argued? I've seen a lot of people argue that the economic damage would have been the same whether we locked down or not, which is effectively the same argument.
    - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
      There are definitely people who think both of those things are true, but you could also argue that the economic damage would have been the same and also that there would have been other costs (e.g. losses to individual autonomy, lost social connections / harms to community, resulting stress and trauma, etc. etc. )
      - twblalock 6y ago
        > but you could also argue that the economic damage would have been the same I really doubt that. Look at how people were behaving until the day the lockdowns began. Look at how people are behaving now. They aren't afraid of going to bars and restaurants and shops. There is no good reason to believe that they wouldn't have behaved the same way the entire time, if the lockdowns had not intervened. It's obviously true that the economy would have been damaged with or without the lockdowns. It's entirely different to claim that the damage without lockdowns would have been as bad as the damage with lockdowns.
        watwut 6y ago
        Restaurants are waaay emptier then they used to be. What are you talking abou?
        twblalock 6y ago
        They aren't entirely empty though, are they? Yet during the lockdowns it was illegal to go to restaurants. Some customers are better than no customers. Ask any restaurant owner if they would prefer lockdowns to the current state of affairs. Again, it's not like the economy would not have been damaged either way, but it's obvious that the lockdowns made the economic damage worse.
        klyrs 6y ago
        OTOH we're ordering in like never before
      - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
        @twblalock - can't reply to your reply so replying here instead. I also doubt it and wouldn't argue it myself, I was just pointing out that making that argument need not imply that you think there are no other costs, i.e. those arguments are not equivalent.
    - berdario 6y ago
      Sweden: 8% GDP drop countries that locked down early: China: 3% GDP increase Vietnam: 2% GDP increase New Zealand: 2% GDP drop Croatia: 15% GDP drop Denmark: 7% GDP drop Norway: 6% GDP drop (obviously, the numbers cannot be easily compared since they might refer to slightly different periods, but all of these include Q2 2020) From these numbers, it's not obvious at all that not locking down would actually be beneficial for the economy. In fact, except for a few outliers like Croatia (disproportionately impacted by the drop in tourism revenue, I presume) it seems that locking down prevented even steeper losses.
      - twblalock 6y ago
        These numbers need to be compared to the numbers in the same country for the previous year. For example, in China a 3% increase is actually a regression, because they did 6% in 2019. Even that isn't enough, because we don't have the numbers for each country if it didn't lock down. It's all hypothetical. What would Norway's GDP growth rate have been without a lockdown, for example? The answer is a number. It's unknowable. People claiming that things would have been as bad, or worse, have zero evidence to back them up. People like me who say it would not have been as bad have evidence based on observed consumer behavior which was clearly curtailed during the lockdown and improved after.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        I hate break it to people, but C19 is not going anywhere and this is not over yet, especially in countries/locales where there were very few infections. Meanwhile, Sweden had no new cases yesterday.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- berdario 6y ago
  Sweden's handling of the pandemic has been a catastrophe, causing the death of thousands of people. If you look at the numbers of countries that had a decent pandemic response with lockdowns... like Vietnam, Croatia, New Zealand. These 3 countries account for 242 deaths. Sweden alone accounts for 5800, almost 25 times as much as those 3 countries combined! Sweden looks good only in comparison of other countries that locked down only after it was too late (e.g. UK, it was several weeks ahead of the curve, and it totally squandered that advantage). There's something to be said for Sweden's population managing to socially distance a bit without being compelled by law enforcement. But that doesn't help the economy anyhow, since they also got a 8% drop in their GDP.
  - taneliv 6y ago
    Also, those three countries have combined population of 105+ million. Sweden has 10.3 million. Quick napkin calculation suggests a 244-fold death rate per capita.
  - TearsInTheRain 6y ago
    How can you reasonably compare an isolated island country like New Zealand with anyone else?
    - berdario 6y ago
      Croatia is not an island, Vietnam is not an island. I included multiple countries exactly to pre-empt straw man objections like those.
nafey 6y ago
What do you mean by submarine in this context?
- dang 6y ago
  It's a reference to PG's old essay about PR pieces placed as media stories. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=paulgraham.com%20submarine&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
blaser-waffle 6y ago
This is a submarine post? Bollocks. Hell, the domain of the link is clearly a law firm's news page, with links directly back to the law firm itself (Rose Law Group). Nothing obfuscated about this, thus failing the submarine criteria. Just plain ole brand-building blog post stuff, standard "insightful" but-also-clickbate stuff we see all the time on HN.

claydavisss 6y ago

My employer has endorsed BLM, an organization that has a publicly stated goal of minimizing the nuclear family. Welcome to the new Establishment.

jdminhbg 6y ago

The source for this statistic is sales data from an online legal forms website, originally here: https://legaltemplates.net/resources/personal-family/divorce-rates-covid-19/ https://legaltemplates.net/resources/personal-family/divorce... I won't be surprised if numbers like this end up panning out, but I don't think this is much of a source.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
Yeah, all of the headline, article, and source seem to be junk here. This is a law firm publishing an online "newspaper" named after itself, running a news story with a headline that misinterprets a quote from their own employees. They said that their sales were up 34%, not that divorce rates went up 34%!

01100011 6y ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Reform alimony now. Force consistent rules at the federal level. Make childless divorces straightforward and fair. Eliminate the notion that a former spouse is responsible for maintaining a 'standard of living' established during the marriage. If two adults want to part ways, make them responsible for being adults. To anyone not married, please understand what you are agreeing to by getting married. It is a legally binding contract that has nothing to do with romanticized notions of true love. There is an industry of people looking to profit from you and exploit you. Be extremely careful who you enter into that contract with.

valuearb 6y ago
Plus the Trump tax “cuts” actually removed the tax deductibility of alimony from the payer, and made it tax free for the recipient. So if you make $150,000, and pay $65,000 of that in alimony to your ex, your ex can end up with a higher net income.
- bradenb 6y ago
  This actually is a broken part IMO. I’ve read that it actually just hurts both parties because a judge still must try to maintain an equivalent QOL but since alimony is paid from post-tax income now they cannot afford as much so less is taken. Likewise, even though it is tax-free for the recipient, since less is taken they often end up with less. I can’t remember where I read this but I’ll see if I can track down a source.
  - kilburn 6y ago
    It makes sense. Income taxes are progressive, which means you pay (percentually) more the more you earn. Let's see an example. Say that the payer earns 120k pre-tax. Now: a) If you tax the recipient the judge orders a 60k/60k split. After the split both parties get taxed for 60k, which lands them on the 22% marginal tax rate bracket. In the end each party effectively pays 11k in taxes, and hence gets 49k post-taxes. b) If you tax the earner they pay taxes first, hitting the 24% tax rate bracket and effectively paying ~29k in taxes. So you spit the remaining 91k and each party gets 45.5k post-taxes. Definitely a lose-lose. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Marginal_tax_rates_for_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...

helsinki 6y ago

I had a child with my fiancé six weeks ago. We lived together throughout COVID and even before, but four weeks after our daughter’s birth, she told me she was leaving and someone was picking them up shortly. What happened afterwards is omitted for legal reasons. It has been the worst two weeks of my life. We have not spoken since the day they left and I have not seen my daughter. I should note that it takes two to tango. I could have done more to prevent it from happening. I could have done a lot better, but I just didn’t realize the fragility of our situation. I cannot wait to hold my daughter again.

bladegash 6y ago
Hang in there. Been through it myself and it was an awful experience. However, nearly four years later and everything has changed in my life for the better. Don’t allow her to make you feel like you have no rights or role within your daughter’s life, take some time to determine how important staying involved is to you, and if it is important, don’t give up.
- helsinki 6y ago
  Thank you - this is helpful to read. I didn’t think anything could hurt the mind and heart so much.
  - bladegash 6y ago
    There's nothing else like it and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. That being said, you always have a choice with how you perceive your circumstances, the story/narrative you tell to yourself about what happened, and further how you use all this to create a new life for you and your daughter. Take time to grieve the loss(es), but if you get a bit stuck, don't hesitate to ask for help (e.g., from a therapist, doctor, minister, friends, family, etc.). Someone shared with me a metaphor during my divorce which I found helpful, so who knows, maybe it will help you as well: Imagine your house being destroyed by a natural disaster. It sucks, you have to start over, and you have to cope with a lot of loss. Eventually, you get to the point where you're ready to build a new house. Only this time, you get to pick out what the new house looks like. You get to pick the decorations, the color of the paint, the fixtures, etc. It may not seem like it when you're in the immediate aftermath of the house being destroyed, but eventually, you build a house that is exactly the way you wanted/needed it, and maybe wouldn't have done otherwise if not for the natural disaster. It took hard work, pain, and perseverance, but you ended up even better than where you started. No one else did it for you. You made that happen.

asperous 6y ago

I looked on google trends and Oregon's stat page and couldn't confirm that its "surging": https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/BirthDeathCertificates/VitalStatistics/Pages/Divorce-Data.aspx https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/BirthDeathCertificates/VitalSt... https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=%22how%20to%20file%20for%20divorce%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

Drunk_Engineer 6y ago
It isn't surging. A company selling downloadable "legal templates" is claiming a 34% increase in sales. This is a clickbait PR stunt masquerading as news.
- axaxs 6y ago
  I'm inclined to agree. Assuming they aren't advertising more or some other obvious factor, people are generally a) stuck at home on electronic devices, b) afraid to go out to many places, and c) loss of income. Of course an online DIY divorce template seller is going to see sales rise.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Well, partially. Divorce isn’t instant, legally or logistically. If divorce was going to spike, you’d expect leading indicators to rise in the weeks and months before hand, as couples begin to move from the “thinking about it” stage to the “printing paperwork” stage.
elsonrodriguez 6y ago
Look at the submitter's post history.

flexie 6y ago

I strongly doubt this, and especially the high percentage. Apparently, the numbers are based on online sale of legal templates. Maybe that took off, just like e-commerce in general.

aidenn0 6y ago

Abuse of spouses and kids is also up. That's typical anytime unemployment goes up.

archer101214 6y ago

I caught my wife of 17 years with another woman 20 years younger than her. We have 8 kids together. She said she loves her and can't stop thinking of her. I'm giving her space but I don't think we are going to make it and it just kills me.