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The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

nemothekid 6y ago
Feel like you are putting the cart before the horse here. It's not like the government gives you a house and 40 acres for getting married.
- Kluny 6y ago
  Two people working together can generate more wealth than one person working alone. It's not a controversial concept.
  - Retric 6y ago
    By that token so can 20 people working together.
    - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
      Sure but getting 20 people to live together for an extended period of time is logistically difficult. Two people who already want to be/live together can more easily commit to long economic partnerships like buying a house. It's important to note that while people have been getting married for a long time, having two incomes is relatively new and only recently the norm since women were discouraged from entering the workforce until WW2 and up until the 70s. Some argue there is a "Two-Income Trap" where having two incomes did make certain things more affordable for the middle class like housing but eventually it simply drove up the price of housing & other goods. So now a dual income is simply normal and only having a single income is a disadvantage. Therefore it's not super surprising to see single young adults moving back home. In certain super high CoL areas like the Bay Area we do see a bit of a trend towards 3+ communal living (post college) in the form of group homes. While this decreases the burden of real estate prices, in most cases residents are not building up equity in the home since they rent. In some cases they may be saving enough to offset the lack of equity but that's probably not very common.
      - Retric 6y ago
        Single income families are a very recent aberration that covers a tiny slice of human history. In medieval Europe for example everyone gathered the harvest. It’s largely an outgrowth of extreme prosperity and urbanization.
    - DeonPenny 6y ago
      yes its called a company
  - tjohns 6y ago
    Marriage does not mean both couples will be working. Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes.
    - dcolkitt 6y ago
      > Marriage does not mean both couples will be working. That's true. But a full-time homemaker usually generates economic value that saves money in a long litany of ways. Staying home with kids saves on childcare. Being able to cook meals saves on eating out. Laundry and cleaning saves money on housekeeping costs. Not to mention all of this labor is accumulated tax-free (i.e. if you work to pay for some expense, you have to pay tax on the income first.) > Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes. You absolutely don't. But the statistics are unambigious. Unmarried couples are substantially more likely to split than married ones. The dissolution of a household tends to be an expensive affair that permanently impedes wealth accumulation. Not to mention that because of this, unmarried couples are substantially less likely to join their finances. Therefore they tend to get significantly worse deals than couples with joined finances. For example two-incomes who jointly sign a mortgage can get a much better APR, than when the mortgage is in one person's name.
  - screaminghawk 6y ago
    Two people can work and live together without getting married
- DeonPenny 6y ago
  Yeh and people are givin that for a college degree yet that is associated with wealth even though married highschool educated people out earn single college educated people. Forget what the government does its generally easier to build wealth with two people than one. Theres more flexibility to prevent failure.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    I'm sorry, but aren't you pointing out the obvious? Of course 2 people make more money than one. Are you saying that the individual that is married makes more than a single college educated person? Also I'd question that statistic - the older you are the more likely you are married and more likely you are further in your career.
    - DeonPenny 6y ago
      Yeh but what you think I am saying is a married high school educated person make more as a couple than a single unmarried college educated person. Except thats not true. The married college educated man alone makes more than the single unmarried college educated women/man typically.
- falcolas 6y ago
  You do get tax breaks, and a number of other benefits (in particular related to having children). You also get a tax break on a certain amount of paid interest on a house purchase. Plus, there's the whole " allowed to be next to your loved one in the hospital" thing that's overlooked until it's needed. So, no 40 acres, but there are benefits beyond two incomes.
  - feoren 6y ago
    I have no idea what tax breaks I'm supposed to have gotten from being married. Our collective taxes went up after being married. Is the tax thing folklore from the era when only one partner worked? And mortgage interest being deductible has nothing to do with marriage.
    - falcolas 6y ago
      I (well, We) got one. It's going to vary based on your number of dependents and your tax bracket. Tax law being so super-easy-to-understand here in the states. /s WRT mortgages, given some of the other threads in this discussion pointing out that something like 70% of millennial homeowners were married, it certainly seems relevant. EDIT: It looks like it really depends on the income levels of both parties. Two well paid professionals will probably see a penalty filing jointly, whereas a single professional income will likely see a benefit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty
mrlala 6y ago
I'm confused, in what way has the government deincentivized/roadblocked marriage?
- recursive 6y ago
  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marriage-penalty.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marriage-penalty.asp
  - pezdeath 6y ago
    This penalty basically starts at 250k in combined income. The median household income is $60,700 as of 2018.
    - westwing 6y ago
      The loss of EITC affects low incomes. The mortgage deduction affects anyone with a "large" mortgage, but at current housing prices "large" is becoming the norm.
    - dgfitz 6y ago
      Sure doesn't. My wife and I made the same amount of money, within 1% of each other, when we got married. We both changed out deduction from single to married. Tax bill came around and we owed 10k. Our income at the time, combined, was ~160k.
  - tw04 6y ago
    Even the article admits the data contained therein is more an interesting point than an actual decision criteria for anyone getting married: >Few couples base their marriage decisions on the tax consequences that may result. I'm willing to bet the number of 20-somethings that have "tax considerations" deciding their marital status can be measured in basis points. Furthermore, nothing I see there is a "new penalty", while the numbers have varied over time, those rules look to be exactly the same as they were 20 years ago.
  - mrlala 6y ago
phaedryx 6y ago
I worked with a bunch of "millennials" at my previous job (the entire social media team). This is anecdotal, but, yeah, a lot of them were worried about having a stable career first before they could commit to marriage.
- Voyiatzis 6y ago
  And yet, the planet itself is unstable.
tw04 6y ago
I think it would be helpful and you wouldn't be getting negative reactions if you actually posted some examples. I can't think of a single thing government has done to "roadblock marriage". Under the Obama administration marriage benefits were extended to same-sex couples EXPANDING the government's push for more people to be married. https://web.archive.org/web/20161110003040/https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-lynch-announces-federal-marriage-benefits-available-same-sex-couples https://web.archive.org/web/20161110003040/https://www.justi...
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  > I can't think of a single thing government has done to "roadblock marriage". Land use restrictions, housing regulations, and zoning laws substantially increase housing costs. Affordable family formation is the major driver of marriage rates. Housing costs are the primary component of affordable family formation.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    There are plenty of places where you can find affordable housing in the US. Are marriage rates the same there?
    - dcolkitt 6y ago
      Marriage rates are substantially higher in the cheap housing Southeast, Midwest and Texas than they are in the Northeast and West Coast.
      - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
        The marriage rate isn't different enough across these states to justify the argument of housing. In fact, most places where housing is cheapest isn't the place where marriage rates are higher than the national rate. Oregon and Washington outperform many southeastern states, in fact they surpass every southeastern state, according to the US census. And while N-E and CA do have a lower marriage rate, it isn't that much lower.
rconti 6y ago
I also have no idea what you're talking about. But, generally, I'm not sure that incentivizing people to legally bond themselves to another is necessarily an unquestionably positive thing.
- tastygreenapple 6y ago
  Way more welfare programs are available for single women than married women.
- Pet_Ant 6y ago
  There are economic efficiencies there that are lost. Also makes people make longer term decisions. That said it does reduce the liquidity of the labour pool by causing the “two-body problem”.
- DeonPenny 6y ago
  Because married people throughout time are wealthier. Married people make more money, married millenials own 70% of all the houses millenials have bought, married people are half as likely to be in proverty. If you have to choose a way for people to get wealthy between a college degree and marriage marriage would be the better decision by far.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    Correlation is not causation
    - DeonPenny 6y ago
      In this case because all other effects have been minimized across culture its causation across socio-economic classes
  - watwut 6y ago
    Marriage does not make people wealthy at all. Instead, wealth makes people more likely to marry. People with real issues, whether mental or criminal or sick etcetc both don't marry and have significantly smaller income. People with issues divorce more often and have smaller income too.
trianglem 6y ago
A marriage of equals does not work. If every decision has to get a consensus it leads to ample opportunity for deep resentment, stress and a lower quality of life overall. One parter must be the dominant one.
- watwut 6y ago
  Which is what led to big rates of domestic abuse and violence.
  - trianglem 6y ago
    Well we have well enforced laws against that which should doubtless remain unchanged. I’m saying the expectation going into a marriage should be that one partner is dominant so there are no power struggles much like a hierarchy in a company.
    - watwut 6y ago
      We have laws against that, but not much well enforced. Most of domestic violence happen in private without witness. Even if aggressor is removed temporary, they live together so it is easy to retaliate after. Plus, it is shameful to be victim of domestic abuse. So, reports are few and come in too late and it is hard to prove they are true. Plus, the enforcement is hard. And even harder since domestic violence rates among cops are higher then those of general population. > I’m saying the expectation going into a marriage should be that one partner is dominant so there are no power struggles much like a hierarchy in a company. Aaaand this is literally what leads to abuse. See, the perfect compliance is not possible nor actually human. The one dominator is bound to do dumb or egoistic decisions here and there. Or decisions that ignore needs of partner due to ignorance. With partner being submissive and not providing feedback, dominating person is bound to become worst and worst. Plus, actual humans have real need for own agency. And when that agency manifests, again, the one who feels entitled to rule it all becomes abusive.
      - trianglem 6y ago
thatfrenchguy 6y ago
Ah yes, like how the federal government makes you pay taxes on the "value" of health insurance when you insure your common law partner but not when you're married ? Come on.
syshum 6y ago
I both agree and disagree with your position... I agree in that married couple are normally muti-income households which makes them wealthy I disagree that it should be the role of government to incentivize or decentivize marriage We can resolve this by allowing people to form their own "households" for tax purposes and it should not matter if they are related, married, sleeping with each other, etc. If they live in the same house, they should be treated as a household and be taxes according to that (or individually if they desire) I would like to see an end to all government regulations on interpersonal relationships.

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

nemothekid 6y ago

Feel like you are putting the cart before the horse here. It's not like the government gives you a house and 40 acres for getting married.

Kluny 6y ago
Two people working together can generate more wealth than one person working alone. It's not a controversial concept.
- Retric 6y ago
  By that token so can 20 people working together.
  - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
    Sure but getting 20 people to live together for an extended period of time is logistically difficult. Two people who already want to be/live together can more easily commit to long economic partnerships like buying a house. It's important to note that while people have been getting married for a long time, having two incomes is relatively new and only recently the norm since women were discouraged from entering the workforce until WW2 and up until the 70s. Some argue there is a "Two-Income Trap" where having two incomes did make certain things more affordable for the middle class like housing but eventually it simply drove up the price of housing & other goods. So now a dual income is simply normal and only having a single income is a disadvantage. Therefore it's not super surprising to see single young adults moving back home. In certain super high CoL areas like the Bay Area we do see a bit of a trend towards 3+ communal living (post college) in the form of group homes. While this decreases the burden of real estate prices, in most cases residents are not building up equity in the home since they rent. In some cases they may be saving enough to offset the lack of equity but that's probably not very common.
    - Retric 6y ago
      Single income families are a very recent aberration that covers a tiny slice of human history. In medieval Europe for example everyone gathered the harvest. It’s largely an outgrowth of extreme prosperity and urbanization.
  - DeonPenny 6y ago
    yes its called a company
- tjohns 6y ago
  Marriage does not mean both couples will be working. Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes.
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    > Marriage does not mean both couples will be working. That's true. But a full-time homemaker usually generates economic value that saves money in a long litany of ways. Staying home with kids saves on childcare. Being able to cook meals saves on eating out. Laundry and cleaning saves money on housekeeping costs. Not to mention all of this labor is accumulated tax-free (i.e. if you work to pay for some expense, you have to pay tax on the income first.) > Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes. You absolutely don't. But the statistics are unambigious. Unmarried couples are substantially more likely to split than married ones. The dissolution of a household tends to be an expensive affair that permanently impedes wealth accumulation. Not to mention that because of this, unmarried couples are substantially less likely to join their finances. Therefore they tend to get significantly worse deals than couples with joined finances. For example two-incomes who jointly sign a mortgage can get a much better APR, than when the mortgage is in one person's name.
- screaminghawk 6y ago
  Two people can work and live together without getting married
DeonPenny 6y ago
Yeh and people are givin that for a college degree yet that is associated with wealth even though married highschool educated people out earn single college educated people. Forget what the government does its generally easier to build wealth with two people than one. Theres more flexibility to prevent failure.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  I'm sorry, but aren't you pointing out the obvious? Of course 2 people make more money than one. Are you saying that the individual that is married makes more than a single college educated person? Also I'd question that statistic - the older you are the more likely you are married and more likely you are further in your career.
  - DeonPenny 6y ago
    Yeh but what you think I am saying is a married high school educated person make more as a couple than a single unmarried college educated person. Except thats not true. The married college educated man alone makes more than the single unmarried college educated women/man typically.
falcolas 6y ago
You do get tax breaks, and a number of other benefits (in particular related to having children). You also get a tax break on a certain amount of paid interest on a house purchase. Plus, there's the whole " allowed to be next to your loved one in the hospital" thing that's overlooked until it's needed. So, no 40 acres, but there are benefits beyond two incomes.
- feoren 6y ago
  I have no idea what tax breaks I'm supposed to have gotten from being married. Our collective taxes went up after being married. Is the tax thing folklore from the era when only one partner worked? And mortgage interest being deductible has nothing to do with marriage.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    I (well, We) got one. It's going to vary based on your number of dependents and your tax bracket. Tax law being so super-easy-to-understand here in the states. /s WRT mortgages, given some of the other threads in this discussion pointing out that something like 70% of millennial homeowners were married, it certainly seems relevant. EDIT: It looks like it really depends on the income levels of both parties. Two well paid professionals will probably see a penalty filing jointly, whereas a single professional income will likely see a benefit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty

mrlala 6y ago

I'm confused, in what way has the government deincentivized/roadblocked marriage?

recursive 6y ago
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marriage-penalty.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marriage-penalty.asp
- pezdeath 6y ago
  This penalty basically starts at 250k in combined income. The median household income is $60,700 as of 2018.
  - westwing 6y ago
    The loss of EITC affects low incomes. The mortgage deduction affects anyone with a "large" mortgage, but at current housing prices "large" is becoming the norm.
  - dgfitz 6y ago
    Sure doesn't. My wife and I made the same amount of money, within 1% of each other, when we got married. We both changed out deduction from single to married. Tax bill came around and we owed 10k. Our income at the time, combined, was ~160k.
- tw04 6y ago
  Even the article admits the data contained therein is more an interesting point than an actual decision criteria for anyone getting married: >Few couples base their marriage decisions on the tax consequences that may result. I'm willing to bet the number of 20-somethings that have "tax considerations" deciding their marital status can be measured in basis points. Furthermore, nothing I see there is a "new penalty", while the numbers have varied over time, those rules look to be exactly the same as they were 20 years ago.
- mrlala 6y ago

phaedryx 6y ago

I worked with a bunch of "millennials" at my previous job (the entire social media team). This is anecdotal, but, yeah, a lot of them were worried about having a stable career first before they could commit to marriage.

Voyiatzis 6y ago
And yet, the planet itself is unstable.

tw04 6y ago

I think it would be helpful and you wouldn't be getting negative reactions if you actually posted some examples. I can't think of a single thing government has done to "roadblock marriage". Under the Obama administration marriage benefits were extended to same-sex couples EXPANDING the government's push for more people to be married. https://web.archive.org/web/20161110003040/https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-lynch-announces-federal-marriage-benefits-available-same-sex-couples https://web.archive.org/web/20161110003040/https://www.justi...

dcolkitt 6y ago
> I can't think of a single thing government has done to "roadblock marriage". Land use restrictions, housing regulations, and zoning laws substantially increase housing costs. Affordable family formation is the major driver of marriage rates. Housing costs are the primary component of affordable family formation.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  There are plenty of places where you can find affordable housing in the US. Are marriage rates the same there?
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    Marriage rates are substantially higher in the cheap housing Southeast, Midwest and Texas than they are in the Northeast and West Coast.
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      The marriage rate isn't different enough across these states to justify the argument of housing. In fact, most places where housing is cheapest isn't the place where marriage rates are higher than the national rate. Oregon and Washington outperform many southeastern states, in fact they surpass every southeastern state, according to the US census. And while N-E and CA do have a lower marriage rate, it isn't that much lower.

rconti 6y ago

I also have no idea what you're talking about. But, generally, I'm not sure that incentivizing people to legally bond themselves to another is necessarily an unquestionably positive thing.

tastygreenapple 6y ago
Way more welfare programs are available for single women than married women.
Pet_Ant 6y ago
There are economic efficiencies there that are lost. Also makes people make longer term decisions. That said it does reduce the liquidity of the labour pool by causing the “two-body problem”.
DeonPenny 6y ago
Because married people throughout time are wealthier. Married people make more money, married millenials own 70% of all the houses millenials have bought, married people are half as likely to be in proverty. If you have to choose a way for people to get wealthy between a college degree and marriage marriage would be the better decision by far.
- lhorie 6y ago
  Correlation is not causation
  - DeonPenny 6y ago
    In this case because all other effects have been minimized across culture its causation across socio-economic classes
- watwut 6y ago
  Marriage does not make people wealthy at all. Instead, wealth makes people more likely to marry. People with real issues, whether mental or criminal or sick etcetc both don't marry and have significantly smaller income. People with issues divorce more often and have smaller income too.

trianglem 6y ago

A marriage of equals does not work. If every decision has to get a consensus it leads to ample opportunity for deep resentment, stress and a lower quality of life overall. One parter must be the dominant one.

watwut 6y ago
Which is what led to big rates of domestic abuse and violence.
- trianglem 6y ago
  Well we have well enforced laws against that which should doubtless remain unchanged. I’m saying the expectation going into a marriage should be that one partner is dominant so there are no power struggles much like a hierarchy in a company.
  - watwut 6y ago
    We have laws against that, but not much well enforced. Most of domestic violence happen in private without witness. Even if aggressor is removed temporary, they live together so it is easy to retaliate after. Plus, it is shameful to be victim of domestic abuse. So, reports are few and come in too late and it is hard to prove they are true. Plus, the enforcement is hard. And even harder since domestic violence rates among cops are higher then those of general population. > I’m saying the expectation going into a marriage should be that one partner is dominant so there are no power struggles much like a hierarchy in a company. Aaaand this is literally what leads to abuse. See, the perfect compliance is not possible nor actually human. The one dominator is bound to do dumb or egoistic decisions here and there. Or decisions that ignore needs of partner due to ignorance. With partner being submissive and not providing feedback, dominating person is bound to become worst and worst. Plus, actual humans have real need for own agency. And when that agency manifests, again, the one who feels entitled to rule it all becomes abusive.
    - trianglem 6y ago

thatfrenchguy 6y ago

Ah yes, like how the federal government makes you pay taxes on the "value" of health insurance when you insure your common law partner but not when you're married ? Come on.

syshum 6y ago

I both agree and disagree with your position... I agree in that married couple are normally muti-income households which makes them wealthy I disagree that it should be the role of government to incentivize or decentivize marriage We can resolve this by allowing people to form their own "households" for tax purposes and it should not matter if they are related, married, sleeping with each other, etc. If they live in the same house, they should be treated as a household and be taxes according to that (or individually if they desire) I would like to see an end to all government regulations on interpersonal relationships.