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The High Price of Being Single in America

104 points by Kopion 14y ago

zdw 14y ago
While I agree with the general premise... I'd love to see these numbers run again, but with a child or two thrown into the mix at marriage, or 5/10 years down the line. Many societies try to promote childrearing via tax benefits - our just has it structured primarily through a marriage credit.
- btilly 14y ago
  I had that thought too, but they sort of addressed that. Per capita, child rearing costs single women more than married women. That's because married women get to split costs with husbands. If you look at divorce statistics, for all that men feel that they get screwed, after a divorce the ex-husband usually has a significantly better standard of living, and the ex-wife and kids wind up worse off. (My source for that is _The Price of Motherhood_ which is a fascinating book, but was not exactly the most comfortable book for my wife to have found while pregnant with our first.) Thus if you add in children, marriage becomes an even better relative deal for women. (Note that all figures that they offer are aimed at women, and not men.)
  - benaiah 14y ago
    I think the biggest complaint from men in divorces is not that they get screwed economically, but that the courts are heavily biased towards giving the mother the children. Sometimes "standard of living" isn't the most important factor in play - otherwise custody cases would be two parents trying to make the other one take the kids, instead of the other way around. I haven't done the research to make the argument that their complaints are true, (though I think it is), but you are somewhat misrepresenting the complaint. I've never been married, divorced, or had children, so if I am missing something obvious, please let me know.
    - btilly 14y ago
      Statistics that I've heard on that one. A significant majority of the time, children go with the mother. In a significant majority of cases where fathers contest custody, children go with the father. This is at least in part because the father usually has better finances, so can make a persuasive case that he'd be in a better position to be a caregiver. That said, it is very common for men to threaten a custody dispute then back down with some other concessions. It is difficult to tell how often this is because he didn't think he'd win, or preferred the concession. My source on this is the same book. Disclaimer, I've been married over 20 years, 2 kids, never divorced.
      - bostonpete 14y ago
        > In a significant majority of cases where fathers > contest custody, children go with the father. I have a fair amount of familiarity with family law (not a lawyer though) and I have to say this is hard to fathom. To my knowledge fathers have to basically prove gross negligence or substance abuse or other criminal activity by the mother in order to stand a chance of winning physical custody. It is generally presumed that kids are better off with the mother and any father seeking custody needs to prove otherwise. Having better finances usually doesn't factor into the decision AFAIK -- if the father has better finances to support the child, he can do so with child support.
        btilly 14y ago
        I was quoting from a book that I read 8 years and 2 moves ago. But the best that Google turned up is the very dated http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias_Study.htm http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias... that found that when fathers choose to contest custody, 70% of the time they win sole or joint custody. I have found elsewhere a claim that usually this is joint, so women are still coming out better. This seems believable, but that claim was not sourced. Several places I found the claim that women receive sole custody about 70% of the time, joint custody 20% and men get sole custody a bit under 10%. But also the majority of custody cases are not settled by a judge, so that proportion does not speak to what happens when a judge makes the choice. So I should put a question mark next to the specific claim that men who contest, have a good chance of getting custody. Because I don't have good sources to back it up.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    >>If you look at divorce statistics, for all that men feel that they get screwed, after a divorce the ex-husband usually has a significantly better standard of living, and the ex-wife and kids wind up worse off. In all fairness, comparative troubles hardly make any sense. The fact of the matter is, Alimony is a huge demotivating factor when it comes to marriage. No ones likes to part away with what they have earned because a relationship ended, the best protection against that at this time is to somehow stop getting into a relationship at the first place. This makes problems more worse for most women. Contrary to whatever is going around in the name of freedom, marriage is a really an amazing institution for many societies around the world. When it comes financial security, physical security and center of responsibility in most cases marriage works like magic. And alimony sort of becomes a very demotivating factor to get married. In process what happens is alimony protects a few women, much of the alimony system is abused. And the side effect is most women suffer because of it.
aswanson 14y ago
I'm a married male with children, and this is bullshit. I recall at my first job my manager saying, "Yeah, tax the hell out of you young single rich guys". The state should have no discriminatory power of taxation w/regard to marital/reproductive status. If anything, young single people should be taxed less, as they are a lower draw on social services and are more likely to deploy capital rather than save.
- jmillikin 14y ago
  Tax rates are set based on a person's ability to pay, not on their expected use of social services. You could argue that this discriminates against young wealthy singles, but then you'd effectively be arguing that the impoverished or the chronically ill should pay proportionately higher taxes because they are more dependent on the state for their day-to-day wellbeing. The problems with this position should be obvious.
  - aswanson 14y ago
    We're entering the area of considering charity vs. penalty. The current system penalizes those that have no need of charity doubly. Not only do they have to subsidize those more dependent upon the system, but they are penalized on top of that with more taxation. The problem with that situation should be obvious, as well.
jquery 14y ago
Get rid of marriage from the tax code entirely. If you both make near-equal income, there's not a marriage benefit, but a marriage penalty. My wife and I pay $5-10k more a year in taxes because we decided to get married. The tax-code still encourages the old paradigm of one breadwinner and one person staying home to take care of the children.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  You do get some choice in how to file. I'd much rather the tax code applied equally to everyone - single, married, children or childless. The goal should be for the tax return to be less than a page long and so dead simple that billions of dollars are not spent each year just on filling them out.
  - notdrunkatall 14y ago
    Agreed. The government should not be in the business of social engineering to increase tax revenues. That aspect of governance should be entirely reactive, not proactive. The government should be a subservient entity, not a manipulative one.
    - majormajor 14y ago
      Eh, overall I think tax-related stuff is the "least bad" way for the government to influence behavior, compared to criminalization and the use of force. (The assumption here being that a government with no way of exerting control over its populations behavior is impractical, though I know some disagree with that premise.) (Referring to the idea of using taxes to influence behavior in general rather than the specific; in this case, I'm having trouble coming up with any realistic (for the modern UN) way more heavy-handed approaches could be applied.)
      - tomjen3 14y ago
        Government should not be in the business of influencing behaviour at all, except for preventing direct harm by one person to another. Any thing else is just nanny state visit bullshit
rogerbinns 14y ago
Rather poor mathematics they did, and they should have consulted someone who could the maths a lot more accurately. Financial differences are just part of the way that singles are discriminated against - here is a longer list http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benef...
ms4720 14y ago
This is a crock, the social purpose of marriage is raising children that are properly socialized to inherit society the financial benefits are there to help partially defray the cost of raising children. And as was stated below throw some kids in and see how the numbers work out.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  So are you suggesting the credit only be given to couples that have kids? Your observation doesn't change the imbalance argued in the article.
  - ms4720 14y ago
    No I am saying that under the social system in which marriage was formalized it was expected that people would have kids because there was no birth control and people like to have sex, kids were pretty much assumed as a general byproduct of marriage. And for the vast majority of the couples it was true so the barren were rounding error and were not considered as a separate case.
- dfc 14y ago
  I know you did not mean to offend me, but whenever I see this "married families raise better kids" line I take offense. I was raised by a single mother and a tight knit extended family (grandmother+grandfather+uncle). I was showered with love and parental affection/guidance. Moreover the house I grew up in was dramatically more peaceful and nurturing than it would have been had my parents stayed married.
  - deleted 14y ago
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  - darkarmani 14y ago
    > I was raised by a single mother and a tight knit extended family (grandmother+grandfather+uncle). I don't think he implied that it is true in every single case. If you had to bet a lot of money on a random family with happily married parents vs. a single-mom, where would you place your money? A better statement would be "families raise better kids." You had a family because you had a close extended family. That isn't a normal occurrence.
deleted 14y ago
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- Locke1689 14y ago
  Literally addressed in the first sentence of the article. Please read the article before commenting.
guyzero 14y ago
Taxes generate government revenue as a side-effect of their purpose as a social engineering tool, not the other way around. Not sure why people get that backwards so often.
mdesq 14y ago
The article misses the entire point of civil marriage in the first place, which is to provide incentives for a structure historically seen as positive for society, not to give individual people what they want. We provide (dis)incentives for all kinds of activities, of which marriage is one. Charitable giving and smoking are a couple other areas we try to nudge behavior with tax policy. The authors are people in one sphere of society saying they don't like laws that incentivize behavior that is different from their own. But nevertheless, they are making a conscious choice (even with information about the additional economic costs etc.) to remain unmarried, which includes associated costs and everything else that comes with that choice. In their case, we all win in one sense. Society gets some additional tax revenues to support social services, and the authors get something they prefer instead: singleness. Not all of our preferred behaviors are given incentives by the government; only the ones considered compelling and in the public interest. Civil marriage primarily exists for the state; not really for you. Note: Sure, there are good and interesting arguments about the social value of civil marriage, whether or not it should even exist, and if so, in what form. I'm not going there. I'm just pointing out that the authors are making a conscious economic decision and are disappointed that they pay an added price.
- kscaldef 14y ago
  I'm not sure how you can say that "the article misses the entire point" when the third paragraph is entirely devoted to addressing it.
  - mdesq 14y ago
    They didn't address it in the slightest. They mentioned "social good" in a sentence and then demonstrated that they either didn't understand what that meant or decided to completely ignore it by then talking mostly about individual happiness. Society is more affected by your behavior and your drain on its resources than by how happy you feel.
- jianxioy 14y ago
  Agree. I was drowning in the flood that was the authors' self-entitlement.
thattallguy 14y ago
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benevpayor 14y ago
This was not my experience at all. When my wife and I married and combined incomes we jumped a bracket, didn't qualify for IRA withholding, tuition credits (I was in night school at the time), or DC's first time home buyer's credit. Two people with career salaries are much better off (with respect to taxes) before marriage... yes, we gamed out filing jointly and separately - we got hosed either way.
rayiner 14y ago
This is unusually bad writing for the Atlantic. The article concludes: "Our lower-earning woman paid $484,368 for being single. Our higher-earning woman paid $1,022,096: more than a million dollars just for being single." Breaking down those numbers, $381,600 (79%) and $763,200 (75%), respectively, of each person's additional cost comes from living arrangements--the fact that married women spend less on housing than unmarried women of the same income level. They say: "We did consider that the discrepancy was in part due to the simple logistical fact that two people can split a rent or mortgage. However, other less obvious factors also come into play." They wave their hands and point to discrimination against single people in finding housing, but then completely avoid trying to quantify those effects and just use the big number. No shit it's cheaper to split a household with someone than to live alone. That's one of the purposes of getting married. The same is true for the "health spending" category. They again wave their hands about "discriminatory policies" but fail to actually point out a single policy that might explain higher healthcare expenditures by singles. They point out that married disabled people fare better, because they can combine their incomes, but that again reduces to the obvious argument that it's cheaper for people to couple up than to try and live alone. The whole income tax calculation ignores the fact that around half of couples (I've seen figures from 40-60%) actually pay a tax penalty to get married. My wife regularly (half-)jokes that we should get a divorce to save money.
- waqf 14y ago
  The spouse's income is described in para. 7 (depending on how you count): "Our married women's husbands worked too, earning $51,000 and $103,000 respectively."
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Thanks. Corrected. It's interesting they set the husband's salaries based on the idea that women earn $0.78 for every $1.00 earned by men, but fail to account for the fact that a woman who stays permanently single is far less likely to suffer the reduced lifetime earning power that comes from having kids.
    - 14y ago
dgbsco 14y ago
This neglects "The Price of Being Married" which is rarely an instance of frugality and prudent fiscal discipline. I'm not implying that ALL members of a married home are frivolous with their money, but it sure seems that way sometimes. How much money does having a wife or husband cost? I'm willing to bet it's a sh*t load more - not to spread words of discouragement or anything.
bennesvig 14y ago
"The husbands' salaries to reflect the fact that a woman earns 78 cents for every dollar a man earns" If that were actually true, why would any business hire a man when they could get the same work for less?
- Jtsummers 14y ago
  People aren't rational. The top two explanations would probably be: society says women shouldn't be doing those jobs; the person hiring believes women shouldn't be doing those jobs or would rather have men around. If we made every decision based off of sound economic or similar principles there's a lot that wouldn't happen. Gas guzzlers wouldn't be so popular (from a global or national perspective gas sippers make far more sense for pollution, personal finances, overall security because of reduced dependency on others). But they are.
  - conroe64 14y ago
    Actually, the whole thing is kind of a myth. That statistic doesn't compare men and women working the same job for the same number of hours. Since men often work in more dangerous and harsh conditions then women, this would account for the disparity. Here is some more information about it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-tha...
- graeme 14y ago
  It's rarely the case that an equally skilled woman earns 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. There are a wide variety of factors that lead to the wage gap. * Women take more time off for child-rearing * Women still devote more time to household tasks + children * Women are more likely to choose careers for reasons other than money * Discrimination against women surely plays some part * Women are less likely to negotiate salary * Assertive women are often perceived negatively, unlike assertive men. There are many others. But if you take a male and female, and put them in the same job for three years straight out of college, there won't necessarily be much of a wage gap. In some cases the women earn more.
elchief 14y ago
Perhaps they should find husbands then.
peapicker 14y ago
"Insurance policies—ranging from health, to life, to home, to car—cost more, on average, for unmarried people compared to those who are married." Well, the actuaries actually process statistics on why rates should be lower. That has nothing to do with gvt and everything to do with statistics. I'll buy an actuaries reason over the govt, as they are specifically doing this to make the most money for the insurance companies.
- csense 14y ago
  The question that comes to my mind is, which of the following situations is true? A) Marital status is an input to the insurance model. If all other inputs but marital status are changed, the model outputs different values, and the marriage is lower. B) Marital status is correlated with other factors, which are input to the insurance model. For example, it is quite conceivable that individuals who are either very young or very old are likelier to be unmarried, and also likelier to be higher risks for many types of insurance (e.g. a young driver is risky due to inexperience, an elderly driver is risky due to declining faculties and health problems that interfere with driving).
wiredfool 14y ago
They got some of the particulars of the inherited IRA wrong. There are two options: * take at least the required minimum distribution starting in the tax year following the transfer, or * draw down the entire account within 5 years This applies to any inherited Ira that is not from your spouse, even if you are married. I.e., my inherited Ira (I'm married) is treated no differently from my sister's (she's not). Distributions from inherited iras are taxed like ordinary income, no matter when they happen or by how much you take, unless you're unlucky enough to have not done your red, in which case there's a crazy penalty.
kamaal 14y ago
As an Indian, and asking purely from a cultural perspective how is the family system in America? This might very well be stereotyping but the impression we have about US is that divorces are very common and marriage rates are low. And the family system is pretty disintegrated. There was a article posted here few days back on how a guy was sleeping on the streets while he could stay with his sister. That sort of thing is not imaginable here in India. Also being married has its own advantages. Regardless of whatever the feminist movement believes. Married women do get a great deal of financial security, physical security and comfort by the very virtue of the way marriage is structured. Something that is seen to be happening here in India is increased rates of Alimony claims, false dowry cases and super powerful laws in favor on women(which seem to be abused currently) may lead to problems like these. This article makes a nice read.
- kyllo 14y ago
  I realize that since you are Indian, your culture is your basis of comparison and contrast with the US, but you should be aware that India and other South Asian countries consistently rank among the worst on Earth in international humanitarian organizations' analyses of women's rights. I'm married, I think being married is great, and I also know that America has some serious social ills, but I would never trade America's "disintegrated family system" for the current system in India where numerous forms of violence against women are so rampant. A little bit of feminism would do Indian society a lot of good.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    >>but you should be aware that India and other South Asian countries consistently rank among the worst on Earth in international humanitarian organizations' analyses of women's rights. Not denying. You are very correct. But I guess not all form of oppression include hitting, beating and other forms of violence. Leaving a women all alone to herself and asking her to earn a million dollars more than a man merely to survive is nothing short of a slow torture in itself. Something against which you cannot scream, complain, whine or even expect others to show sympathy about. In the name of freedom this is just bonded labor of a different kind. Freedom(or a illusion?) is of no use when you tell a woman she can do whatever she likes in the time left after a 15 hour work schedule, tending to kids and other needs of her dependents. Coming to India's problem with violence against women. It looks big also because of the mere population scale you are looking at. Although I agree with you as a society we have a long way to go when it comes to protecting women.
clarky07 14y ago
A huge amount of the money it "costs" to be single they get from splitting living costs. Turns out single people can and do have roommates. The next biggest chunk is from taxes saved by being married, using contrived earnings. Turns out, that it varies wildly depending on how much each person makes. There are certainly some amounts of money where you pay less taxes being married, but there are quite a few others where it costs far more. It just depends on where you fall in the tax bracket. (Generally if both spouses make a similar amount of money the tax code hurts them, if one makes significantly more it helps.)

104 points by Kopion 14y ago

zdw 14y ago

While I agree with the general premise... I'd love to see these numbers run again, but with a child or two thrown into the mix at marriage, or 5/10 years down the line. Many societies try to promote childrearing via tax benefits - our just has it structured primarily through a marriage credit.

btilly 14y ago
I had that thought too, but they sort of addressed that. Per capita, child rearing costs single women more than married women. That's because married women get to split costs with husbands. If you look at divorce statistics, for all that men feel that they get screwed, after a divorce the ex-husband usually has a significantly better standard of living, and the ex-wife and kids wind up worse off. (My source for that is _The Price of Motherhood_ which is a fascinating book, but was not exactly the most comfortable book for my wife to have found while pregnant with our first.) Thus if you add in children, marriage becomes an even better relative deal for women. (Note that all figures that they offer are aimed at women, and not men.)
- benaiah 14y ago
  I think the biggest complaint from men in divorces is not that they get screwed economically, but that the courts are heavily biased towards giving the mother the children. Sometimes "standard of living" isn't the most important factor in play - otherwise custody cases would be two parents trying to make the other one take the kids, instead of the other way around. I haven't done the research to make the argument that their complaints are true, (though I think it is), but you are somewhat misrepresenting the complaint. I've never been married, divorced, or had children, so if I am missing something obvious, please let me know.
  - btilly 14y ago
    Statistics that I've heard on that one. A significant majority of the time, children go with the mother. In a significant majority of cases where fathers contest custody, children go with the father. This is at least in part because the father usually has better finances, so can make a persuasive case that he'd be in a better position to be a caregiver. That said, it is very common for men to threaten a custody dispute then back down with some other concessions. It is difficult to tell how often this is because he didn't think he'd win, or preferred the concession. My source on this is the same book. Disclaimer, I've been married over 20 years, 2 kids, never divorced.
    - bostonpete 14y ago
      > In a significant majority of cases where fathers > contest custody, children go with the father. I have a fair amount of familiarity with family law (not a lawyer though) and I have to say this is hard to fathom. To my knowledge fathers have to basically prove gross negligence or substance abuse or other criminal activity by the mother in order to stand a chance of winning physical custody. It is generally presumed that kids are better off with the mother and any father seeking custody needs to prove otherwise. Having better finances usually doesn't factor into the decision AFAIK -- if the father has better finances to support the child, he can do so with child support.
      - btilly 14y ago
        I was quoting from a book that I read 8 years and 2 moves ago. But the best that Google turned up is the very dated http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias_Study.htm http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias... that found that when fathers choose to contest custody, 70% of the time they win sole or joint custody. I have found elsewhere a claim that usually this is joint, so women are still coming out better. This seems believable, but that claim was not sourced. Several places I found the claim that women receive sole custody about 70% of the time, joint custody 20% and men get sole custody a bit under 10%. But also the majority of custody cases are not settled by a judge, so that proportion does not speak to what happens when a judge makes the choice. So I should put a question mark next to the specific claim that men who contest, have a good chance of getting custody. Because I don't have good sources to back it up.
- kamaal 14y ago
  >>If you look at divorce statistics, for all that men feel that they get screwed, after a divorce the ex-husband usually has a significantly better standard of living, and the ex-wife and kids wind up worse off. In all fairness, comparative troubles hardly make any sense. The fact of the matter is, Alimony is a huge demotivating factor when it comes to marriage. No ones likes to part away with what they have earned because a relationship ended, the best protection against that at this time is to somehow stop getting into a relationship at the first place. This makes problems more worse for most women. Contrary to whatever is going around in the name of freedom, marriage is a really an amazing institution for many societies around the world. When it comes financial security, physical security and center of responsibility in most cases marriage works like magic. And alimony sort of becomes a very demotivating factor to get married. In process what happens is alimony protects a few women, much of the alimony system is abused. And the side effect is most women suffer because of it.

aswanson 14y ago

I'm a married male with children, and this is bullshit. I recall at my first job my manager saying, "Yeah, tax the hell out of you young single rich guys". The state should have no discriminatory power of taxation w/regard to marital/reproductive status. If anything, young single people should be taxed less, as they are a lower draw on social services and are more likely to deploy capital rather than save.

jmillikin 14y ago
Tax rates are set based on a person's ability to pay, not on their expected use of social services. You could argue that this discriminates against young wealthy singles, but then you'd effectively be arguing that the impoverished or the chronically ill should pay proportionately higher taxes because they are more dependent on the state for their day-to-day wellbeing. The problems with this position should be obvious.
- aswanson 14y ago
  We're entering the area of considering charity vs. penalty. The current system penalizes those that have no need of charity doubly. Not only do they have to subsidize those more dependent upon the system, but they are penalized on top of that with more taxation. The problem with that situation should be obvious, as well.

jquery 14y ago

Get rid of marriage from the tax code entirely. If you both make near-equal income, there's not a marriage benefit, but a marriage penalty. My wife and I pay $5-10k more a year in taxes because we decided to get married. The tax-code still encourages the old paradigm of one breadwinner and one person staying home to take care of the children.

rogerbinns 14y ago
You do get some choice in how to file. I'd much rather the tax code applied equally to everyone - single, married, children or childless. The goal should be for the tax return to be less than a page long and so dead simple that billions of dollars are not spent each year just on filling them out.
- notdrunkatall 14y ago
  Agreed. The government should not be in the business of social engineering to increase tax revenues. That aspect of governance should be entirely reactive, not proactive. The government should be a subservient entity, not a manipulative one.
  - majormajor 14y ago
    Eh, overall I think tax-related stuff is the "least bad" way for the government to influence behavior, compared to criminalization and the use of force. (The assumption here being that a government with no way of exerting control over its populations behavior is impractical, though I know some disagree with that premise.) (Referring to the idea of using taxes to influence behavior in general rather than the specific; in this case, I'm having trouble coming up with any realistic (for the modern UN) way more heavy-handed approaches could be applied.)
    - tomjen3 14y ago
      Government should not be in the business of influencing behaviour at all, except for preventing direct harm by one person to another. Any thing else is just nanny state visit bullshit

rogerbinns 14y ago

Rather poor mathematics they did, and they should have consulted someone who could the maths a lot more accurately. Financial differences are just part of the way that singles are discriminated against - here is a longer list http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benef...

ms4720 14y ago

This is a crock, the social purpose of marriage is raising children that are properly socialized to inherit society the financial benefits are there to help partially defray the cost of raising children. And as was stated below throw some kids in and see how the numbers work out.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
So are you suggesting the credit only be given to couples that have kids? Your observation doesn't change the imbalance argued in the article.
- ms4720 14y ago
  No I am saying that under the social system in which marriage was formalized it was expected that people would have kids because there was no birth control and people like to have sex, kids were pretty much assumed as a general byproduct of marriage. And for the vast majority of the couples it was true so the barren were rounding error and were not considered as a separate case.
dfc 14y ago
I know you did not mean to offend me, but whenever I see this "married families raise better kids" line I take offense. I was raised by a single mother and a tight knit extended family (grandmother+grandfather+uncle). I was showered with love and parental affection/guidance. Moreover the house I grew up in was dramatically more peaceful and nurturing than it would have been had my parents stayed married.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > I was raised by a single mother and a tight knit extended family (grandmother+grandfather+uncle). I don't think he implied that it is true in every single case. If you had to bet a lot of money on a random family with happily married parents vs. a single-mom, where would you place your money? A better statement would be "families raise better kids." You had a family because you had a close extended family. That isn't a normal occurrence.

deleted 14y ago

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Locke1689 14y ago
Literally addressed in the first sentence of the article. Please read the article before commenting.

guyzero 14y ago

Taxes generate government revenue as a side-effect of their purpose as a social engineering tool, not the other way around. Not sure why people get that backwards so often.

mdesq 14y ago

The article misses the entire point of civil marriage in the first place, which is to provide incentives for a structure historically seen as positive for society, not to give individual people what they want. We provide (dis)incentives for all kinds of activities, of which marriage is one. Charitable giving and smoking are a couple other areas we try to nudge behavior with tax policy. The authors are people in one sphere of society saying they don't like laws that incentivize behavior that is different from their own. But nevertheless, they are making a conscious choice (even with information about the additional economic costs etc.) to remain unmarried, which includes associated costs and everything else that comes with that choice. In their case, we all win in one sense. Society gets some additional tax revenues to support social services, and the authors get something they prefer instead: singleness. Not all of our preferred behaviors are given incentives by the government; only the ones considered compelling and in the public interest. Civil marriage primarily exists for the state; not really for you. Note: Sure, there are good and interesting arguments about the social value of civil marriage, whether or not it should even exist, and if so, in what form. I'm not going there. I'm just pointing out that the authors are making a conscious economic decision and are disappointed that they pay an added price.

kscaldef 14y ago
I'm not sure how you can say that "the article misses the entire point" when the third paragraph is entirely devoted to addressing it.
- mdesq 14y ago
  They didn't address it in the slightest. They mentioned "social good" in a sentence and then demonstrated that they either didn't understand what that meant or decided to completely ignore it by then talking mostly about individual happiness. Society is more affected by your behavior and your drain on its resources than by how happy you feel.
jianxioy 14y ago
Agree. I was drowning in the flood that was the authors' self-entitlement.

thattallguy 14y ago

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benevpayor 14y ago

This was not my experience at all. When my wife and I married and combined incomes we jumped a bracket, didn't qualify for IRA withholding, tuition credits (I was in night school at the time), or DC's first time home buyer's credit. Two people with career salaries are much better off (with respect to taxes) before marriage... yes, we gamed out filing jointly and separately - we got hosed either way.

rayiner 14y ago

This is unusually bad writing for the Atlantic. The article concludes: "Our lower-earning woman paid $484,368 for being single. Our higher-earning woman paid $1,022,096: more than a million dollars just for being single." Breaking down those numbers, $381,600 (79%) and $763,200 (75%), respectively, of each person's additional cost comes from living arrangements--the fact that married women spend less on housing than unmarried women of the same income level. They say: "We did consider that the discrepancy was in part due to the simple logistical fact that two people can split a rent or mortgage. However, other less obvious factors also come into play." They wave their hands and point to discrimination against single people in finding housing, but then completely avoid trying to quantify those effects and just use the big number. No shit it's cheaper to split a household with someone than to live alone. That's one of the purposes of getting married. The same is true for the "health spending" category. They again wave their hands about "discriminatory policies" but fail to actually point out a single policy that might explain higher healthcare expenditures by singles. They point out that married disabled people fare better, because they can combine their incomes, but that again reduces to the obvious argument that it's cheaper for people to couple up than to try and live alone. The whole income tax calculation ignores the fact that around half of couples (I've seen figures from 40-60%) actually pay a tax penalty to get married. My wife regularly (half-)jokes that we should get a divorce to save money.

waqf 14y ago
The spouse's income is described in para. 7 (depending on how you count): "Our married women's husbands worked too, earning $51,000 and $103,000 respectively."
- rayiner 14y ago
  Thanks. Corrected. It's interesting they set the husband's salaries based on the idea that women earn $0.78 for every $1.00 earned by men, but fail to account for the fact that a woman who stays permanently single is far less likely to suffer the reduced lifetime earning power that comes from having kids.
  - 14y ago

dgbsco 14y ago

This neglects "The Price of Being Married" which is rarely an instance of frugality and prudent fiscal discipline. I'm not implying that ALL members of a married home are frivolous with their money, but it sure seems that way sometimes. How much money does having a wife or husband cost? I'm willing to bet it's a sh*t load more - not to spread words of discouragement or anything.

bennesvig 14y ago

"The husbands' salaries to reflect the fact that a woman earns 78 cents for every dollar a man earns" If that were actually true, why would any business hire a man when they could get the same work for less?

Jtsummers 14y ago
People aren't rational. The top two explanations would probably be: society says women shouldn't be doing those jobs; the person hiring believes women shouldn't be doing those jobs or would rather have men around. If we made every decision based off of sound economic or similar principles there's a lot that wouldn't happen. Gas guzzlers wouldn't be so popular (from a global or national perspective gas sippers make far more sense for pollution, personal finances, overall security because of reduced dependency on others). But they are.
- conroe64 14y ago
  Actually, the whole thing is kind of a myth. That statistic doesn't compare men and women working the same job for the same number of hours. Since men often work in more dangerous and harsh conditions then women, this would account for the disparity. Here is some more information about it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-tha...
graeme 14y ago
It's rarely the case that an equally skilled woman earns 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. There are a wide variety of factors that lead to the wage gap. * Women take more time off for child-rearing * Women still devote more time to household tasks + children * Women are more likely to choose careers for reasons other than money * Discrimination against women surely plays some part * Women are less likely to negotiate salary * Assertive women are often perceived negatively, unlike assertive men. There are many others. But if you take a male and female, and put them in the same job for three years straight out of college, there won't necessarily be much of a wage gap. In some cases the women earn more.

elchief 14y ago

Perhaps they should find husbands then.

peapicker 14y ago

"Insurance policies—ranging from health, to life, to home, to car—cost more, on average, for unmarried people compared to those who are married." Well, the actuaries actually process statistics on why rates should be lower. That has nothing to do with gvt and everything to do with statistics. I'll buy an actuaries reason over the govt, as they are specifically doing this to make the most money for the insurance companies.

csense 14y ago
The question that comes to my mind is, which of the following situations is true? A) Marital status is an input to the insurance model. If all other inputs but marital status are changed, the model outputs different values, and the marriage is lower. B) Marital status is correlated with other factors, which are input to the insurance model. For example, it is quite conceivable that individuals who are either very young or very old are likelier to be unmarried, and also likelier to be higher risks for many types of insurance (e.g. a young driver is risky due to inexperience, an elderly driver is risky due to declining faculties and health problems that interfere with driving).

wiredfool 14y ago

They got some of the particulars of the inherited IRA wrong. There are two options: * take at least the required minimum distribution starting in the tax year following the transfer, or * draw down the entire account within 5 years This applies to any inherited Ira that is not from your spouse, even if you are married. I.e., my inherited Ira (I'm married) is treated no differently from my sister's (she's not). Distributions from inherited iras are taxed like ordinary income, no matter when they happen or by how much you take, unless you're unlucky enough to have not done your red, in which case there's a crazy penalty.

kamaal 14y ago

As an Indian, and asking purely from a cultural perspective how is the family system in America? This might very well be stereotyping but the impression we have about US is that divorces are very common and marriage rates are low. And the family system is pretty disintegrated. There was a article posted here few days back on how a guy was sleeping on the streets while he could stay with his sister. That sort of thing is not imaginable here in India. Also being married has its own advantages. Regardless of whatever the feminist movement believes. Married women do get a great deal of financial security, physical security and comfort by the very virtue of the way marriage is structured. Something that is seen to be happening here in India is increased rates of Alimony claims, false dowry cases and super powerful laws in favor on women(which seem to be abused currently) may lead to problems like these. This article makes a nice read.

kyllo 14y ago
I realize that since you are Indian, your culture is your basis of comparison and contrast with the US, but you should be aware that India and other South Asian countries consistently rank among the worst on Earth in international humanitarian organizations' analyses of women's rights. I'm married, I think being married is great, and I also know that America has some serious social ills, but I would never trade America's "disintegrated family system" for the current system in India where numerous forms of violence against women are so rampant. A little bit of feminism would do Indian society a lot of good.
- kamaal 14y ago
  >>but you should be aware that India and other South Asian countries consistently rank among the worst on Earth in international humanitarian organizations' analyses of women's rights. Not denying. You are very correct. But I guess not all form of oppression include hitting, beating and other forms of violence. Leaving a women all alone to herself and asking her to earn a million dollars more than a man merely to survive is nothing short of a slow torture in itself. Something against which you cannot scream, complain, whine or even expect others to show sympathy about. In the name of freedom this is just bonded labor of a different kind. Freedom(or a illusion?) is of no use when you tell a woman she can do whatever she likes in the time left after a 15 hour work schedule, tending to kids and other needs of her dependents. Coming to India's problem with violence against women. It looks big also because of the mere population scale you are looking at. Although I agree with you as a society we have a long way to go when it comes to protecting women.

clarky07 14y ago

A huge amount of the money it "costs" to be single they get from splitting living costs. Turns out single people can and do have roommates. The next biggest chunk is from taxes saved by being married, using contrived earnings. Turns out, that it varies wildly depending on how much each person makes. There are certainly some amounts of money where you pay less taxes being married, but there are quite a few others where it costs far more. It just depends on where you fall in the tax bracket. (Generally if both spouses make a similar amount of money the tax code hurts them, if one makes significantly more it helps.)