6 ms·

This may be the sleep deprivation talking, but the wiki page for "marriage promotion" is damn near incomprehensible, the article is even worse, and furthermore

by Crito 13y ago

This may be the sleep deprivation talking, but the wiki page for "marriage promotion" is damn near incomprehensible, the article is even worse, and furthermore the article seems to assume background on both it and some recent discussion that has apparently been taking place over it. As far as I can divine, it is some sort of idea about giving extra welfare benefits to married people, or withholding them from single people? Is this currently happening? Is anybody that is advocating it anybody that I should care about? Am I missing something that makes this a HN-worthy topic (if it's just general intellectual interest stuff, that's fine, but I can't tell if that is the angle here or not)?

mooism2 13y ago
In the UK it is called the Married Couple's Tax Allowance. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/married-allow.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/married-allow.htm It means I pay at least £304/yr more in tax than I would if I was married. Whether you should care about UK tax policy, I don't know.
- vidarh 13y ago
  As of 2000, the Married Couple's Tax Allowance in the UK only applies if one of the spouses were born before April 6th 1935.
  - ronaldx 13y ago
    For the moment, yes, but it's a headline policy of the governing party to reintroduce it for all married couples.
  - mooism2 13y ago
    Well that's me told. I thought the Tories had brought it back.
kaybe 13y ago
Germany gives you the 'Ehegattensplitting' (spouse splitting?), which allows you to tax both incomes according to the tax bracket of the mean. If one partner earns a lot less than the other, you're looking at a lot of money here.
- judk 13y ago
  The US has the same, except it doesn't work out so generously for the top ~2% of households (earning more than ~$500k/yr)
- nullc 13y ago
  Here is a visualization of the tax policy (married vs not) in the US system: http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/marriage_penalties_chart.png http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/... If the German policy just lets you use the mean it sounds like it would be free of the effect of creating a penalty for marriage for equal incomes that the US has.
VLM 13y ago
I got a great nights sleep so I'll try a short TLDR. Lots of socioeconomic stats are better for married people than single people, therefore some cargo cult believers swap cause and effect and have been pushing marriage as a path out of poverty, also social/economic mobility in the modern USA is a downward-only random function, and social class is stratifying, which makes marriage significantly more risky in the future than in the past, and more so for poor people than (whats left of the) middle or upper classes. Classic hacker themes of confusing cause and effect. Also any time you mention "cargo cult science" all the Feynmanites ears perk up. Also classic hacker theme of extrapolation of past performance into inappropriate future conditions is a disaster. Someone with a lot more time on their hands could take classic hacker themes like the abov and turn them into traditional fairy tales / fables / morality tales, which is unintentionally (probably) what the linked article is doing. I think a smart lawyer with a smart marketing guy could create something like a marriage with all the good parts and none of the bad parts. A little far fetched for a HN startup idea. Something like a small business combined with power of attorney for each co-founder. The marketing guy has the fun task of convincing women that decades of princess fairytale weddings was all a bunch of bull and they really want this newfangled contract.
- al2o3cr 13y ago
  For fun, note that the same logic fail that produces "marriage will make you richer" also readily produces "marriage will turn you white", which oddly enough even the cargo-culters aren't willing to push. :)
_delirium 13y ago
As far as I can tell, the proximate cause of the discussion was a speech a few weeks ago by Marco Rubio, a Republican Senator and seen as a rising star in the party. For the 50th anniversary of LBJ's "War on Poverty", he argued that the biggest thing the government could to do reduce poverty is to promote marriage: http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=958d06fe-16a3-4e8e-b178-664fc10745bf http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?... This seems to have produced some revived discussion of a more general initiative by some conservatives (especially social conservatives) to shed the "conservatives don't care about the poor" perception by arguing that certain conservative social policies are in fact poverty-reduction mechanisms, and should be renewed with vigor. Promoting two-parent families is one of the main ones that's seen as a "win-win" strategy: conservatives can put forth a poverty-reduction strategy that also aligns with their other views, allowing them to back away from the more hardline (and favored by the libertarian wing) view that poverty-reduction is just not the government's business at all, while also avoiding a "liberal" approach to it. Here's a recent column from someone favorable towards the position: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/is-marriage-promotion-possible/ http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/is-marriage-prom..., who also wrote a book proposing a kind of "new conservative" politics that aims to reposition conservatism as addressing the concerns of the working class: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307277801/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307277801&linkCode=as2&tag=zzggm-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307277801/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  You can go a bit further back. For the past few years, there has been a lot of talk about correlation between income inequality and various negative social outcomes. Recently, a number of economists have discovered that if you run the exact same analysis but substitute single motherhood for inequality, you get much stronger correlations. For example: http://www.economics21.org/commentary/great-gastby-curve-revisited-part-1 http://www.economics21.org/commentary/great-gastby-curve-rev... Now the argument which economist sorts are actually making is a more complicated one - an argument by contradiction. Specifically, if (a) inequality mongers believe their analysis is valid and (b) single motherhood is a bigger factor than inequality according to the analysis, then it logically follows that those inequality mongers should focus their efforts on the bigger problem (single motherhood). But obviously an argument by contradiction is too complex for the political process.
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
Yeah, this is bad. Great political commentary, but god-awful HN fodder. We pay people to have babies, so people have babies. We create a financial reward for people not to marry, so they don't marry. Film at 11. This entire discussion is just regurgitated political arguments from the 60s, and not much has changed, frankly, except the destruction of the family unit and social fabric in poor families. This author wants to make the case that society is to blame (Gee, never saw that one coming) and that we should all strive to be more compassionate and understanding. He does so by some weird idea that marriage is a contract and that by looking at statistics the other side is confusing correlation with causality. Then he rambles into the idea that promoting marriage for stability is getting things ass-backwards. You can draw your own conclusions here looking at 2 thousand years of history. So there's not much here except for a long apologia for programs that never worked, but it's definitely damned long-winded. All part of a larger narrative in the states regarding income inequality and the poor, which is how the left plans to split the country, continue the divisiveness, and get their guys elected for the next few years or so. So really just more of the same stuff you can find on any politics site. I have no idea why it's reached such prominence on HN.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Are you saying that the political left wing are planning to raise issues of income equality and the poor and claim that there is an unfair division in society? Well, this is incredible news, and I must say, highly unexpected.
- pekk 13y ago
  People have babies for reasons which are not at all unique to this place or time, and will have them anyway. People marry or don't marry for reasons which are also independent of governmental policy.
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    Just to be clear, your stance is that paying people to do something will have no impact on the number of people who choose to do it?
Spooky23 13y ago
I think the basis is that if you are poor and have children, there is a sharp penalty for being married, as household income limits for public assistance rule out homes with two working. There were a few folks profiled in our local paper who actually divorced after having surprise triplets in order to qualify for WIC and Medicaid subsidies for the kids. The effect of these policies is pretty clear, especially among African Americans. Statistically, they were the most married population pre-LBJ. Today, not so much.

by Crito 13y ago

mooism2 13y ago

In the UK it is called the Married Couple's Tax Allowance. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/married-allow.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/married-allow.htm It means I pay at least £304/yr more in tax than I would if I was married. Whether you should care about UK tax policy, I don't know.

vidarh 13y ago
As of 2000, the Married Couple's Tax Allowance in the UK only applies if one of the spouses were born before April 6th 1935.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  For the moment, yes, but it's a headline policy of the governing party to reintroduce it for all married couples.
- mooism2 13y ago
  Well that's me told. I thought the Tories had brought it back.

kaybe 13y ago

Germany gives you the 'Ehegattensplitting' (spouse splitting?), which allows you to tax both incomes according to the tax bracket of the mean. If one partner earns a lot less than the other, you're looking at a lot of money here.

judk 13y ago
The US has the same, except it doesn't work out so generously for the top ~2% of households (earning more than ~$500k/yr)
nullc 13y ago
Here is a visualization of the tax policy (married vs not) in the US system: http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/marriage_penalties_chart.png http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/... If the German policy just lets you use the mean it sounds like it would be free of the effect of creating a penalty for marriage for equal incomes that the US has.

VLM 13y ago

I got a great nights sleep so I'll try a short TLDR. Lots of socioeconomic stats are better for married people than single people, therefore some cargo cult believers swap cause and effect and have been pushing marriage as a path out of poverty, also social/economic mobility in the modern USA is a downward-only random function, and social class is stratifying, which makes marriage significantly more risky in the future than in the past, and more so for poor people than (whats left of the) middle or upper classes. Classic hacker themes of confusing cause and effect. Also any time you mention "cargo cult science" all the Feynmanites ears perk up. Also classic hacker theme of extrapolation of past performance into inappropriate future conditions is a disaster. Someone with a lot more time on their hands could take classic hacker themes like the abov and turn them into traditional fairy tales / fables / morality tales, which is unintentionally (probably) what the linked article is doing. I think a smart lawyer with a smart marketing guy could create something like a marriage with all the good parts and none of the bad parts. A little far fetched for a HN startup idea. Something like a small business combined with power of attorney for each co-founder. The marketing guy has the fun task of convincing women that decades of princess fairytale weddings was all a bunch of bull and they really want this newfangled contract.

al2o3cr 13y ago
For fun, note that the same logic fail that produces "marriage will make you richer" also readily produces "marriage will turn you white", which oddly enough even the cargo-culters aren't willing to push. :)

_delirium 13y ago

As far as I can tell, the proximate cause of the discussion was a speech a few weeks ago by Marco Rubio, a Republican Senator and seen as a rising star in the party. For the 50th anniversary of LBJ's "War on Poverty", he argued that the biggest thing the government could to do reduce poverty is to promote marriage: http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=958d06fe-16a3-4e8e-b178-664fc10745bf http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?... This seems to have produced some revived discussion of a more general initiative by some conservatives (especially social conservatives) to shed the "conservatives don't care about the poor" perception by arguing that certain conservative social policies are in fact poverty-reduction mechanisms, and should be renewed with vigor. Promoting two-parent families is one of the main ones that's seen as a "win-win" strategy: conservatives can put forth a poverty-reduction strategy that also aligns with their other views, allowing them to back away from the more hardline (and favored by the libertarian wing) view that poverty-reduction is just not the government's business at all, while also avoiding a "liberal" approach to it. Here's a recent column from someone favorable towards the position: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/is-marriage-promotion-possible/ http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/is-marriage-prom..., who also wrote a book proposing a kind of "new conservative" politics that aims to reposition conservatism as addressing the concerns of the working class: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307277801/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307277801&linkCode=as2&tag=zzggm-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307277801/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

yummyfajitas 13y ago
You can go a bit further back. For the past few years, there has been a lot of talk about correlation between income inequality and various negative social outcomes. Recently, a number of economists have discovered that if you run the exact same analysis but substitute single motherhood for inequality, you get much stronger correlations. For example: http://www.economics21.org/commentary/great-gastby-curve-revisited-part-1 http://www.economics21.org/commentary/great-gastby-curve-rev... Now the argument which economist sorts are actually making is a more complicated one - an argument by contradiction. Specifically, if (a) inequality mongers believe their analysis is valid and (b) single motherhood is a bigger factor than inequality according to the analysis, then it logically follows that those inequality mongers should focus their efforts on the bigger problem (single motherhood). But obviously an argument by contradiction is too complex for the political process.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

Yeah, this is bad. Great political commentary, but god-awful HN fodder. We pay people to have babies, so people have babies. We create a financial reward for people not to marry, so they don't marry. Film at 11. This entire discussion is just regurgitated political arguments from the 60s, and not much has changed, frankly, except the destruction of the family unit and social fabric in poor families. This author wants to make the case that society is to blame (Gee, never saw that one coming) and that we should all strive to be more compassionate and understanding. He does so by some weird idea that marriage is a contract and that by looking at statistics the other side is confusing correlation with causality. Then he rambles into the idea that promoting marriage for stability is getting things ass-backwards. You can draw your own conclusions here looking at 2 thousand years of history. So there's not much here except for a long apologia for programs that never worked, but it's definitely damned long-winded. All part of a larger narrative in the states regarding income inequality and the poor, which is how the left plans to split the country, continue the divisiveness, and get their guys elected for the next few years or so. So really just more of the same stuff you can find on any politics site. I have no idea why it's reached such prominence on HN.

moocowduckquack 13y ago
Are you saying that the political left wing are planning to raise issues of income equality and the poor and claim that there is an unfair division in society? Well, this is incredible news, and I must say, highly unexpected.
pekk 13y ago
People have babies for reasons which are not at all unique to this place or time, and will have them anyway. People marry or don't marry for reasons which are also independent of governmental policy.
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  Just to be clear, your stance is that paying people to do something will have no impact on the number of people who choose to do it?

Spooky23 13y ago

I think the basis is that if you are poor and have children, there is a sharp penalty for being married, as household income limits for public assistance rule out homes with two working. There were a few folks profiled in our local paper who actually divorced after having surprise triplets in order to qualify for WIC and Medicaid subsidies for the kids. The effect of these policies is pretty clear, especially among African Americans. Statistically, they were the most married population pre-LBJ. Today, not so much.