6 ms·

Certainly illegal. Marital status is a protected class in the United States.

• dragonwriter 12y ago
  "Marital status" is unrelated to "household size".
  • baddox 12y ago
    Apart from an extremely strong correlation.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      • mikeyouse 12y ago
        For most financial purposes (ACA, Bankruptcy, etc.), "Household size" doesn't mean your number of roommates, it means the number of people you claim on your taxes.
• cperciva 12y ago
  In Canada we have a "disadvantaged group" rule, which basically says that discrimination is fine as long as you're discriminating in the right direction. I wasn't sure if the US had anything similar.
  • archgoon 12y ago
    Interesting; how does "disadvantaged group" status get determined? Is there a list; or would it be left to a judge's discretion? EDIT: Is this the law in question? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_equity_(Canada) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_equity_(Canada)
    • cperciva 12y ago
      Which groups qualify as "disadvantaged" is generally up to judges to decide, with the caveat that since Canada has a common law system (portions of Quebec law notwithstanding) these questions have pretty much all been resolved already. I was thinking mainly of the various human rights acts, but the principle applies across a wide variety of contexts. The federal government is constitutionally barred from creating laws which discriminate against aboriginals, for example, but is allowed to create laws which discriminate in favour of aboriginals since they are considered to be a disadvantaged group.
  • daurnimator 12y ago
    what is "the right direction"? That sounds very flexible to the whims of the politician or populist movement at the time.
    • jquery 12y ago
      It's the logical conclusion of the "blank slate" theory of human development. Everyone is the same, therefore any heterogeneity of outcome is equivalent to discrimination. These laws can then be justified under this premise as correcting imbalances, rather than creating imbalances.
  • forrestthewoods 12y ago
    In the United States there are Protected Classes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class Race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, pregnancy, citizenship, family, disability, veteran, genetics. Technically speaking discrimination is not illegal. Only discrimination along certain axes, such as those listed above, is. States may have additional protected groups on top of that list.
    • cperciva 12y ago
      Am I correct in thinking that it's illegal to discriminate against members of these classes, but not illegal to discriminate in favour of members of these classes? If an employer wanted to pay veterans $1/hour more than non-veterans doing identical work, would that be allowed?
      • tseabrooks 12y ago
        IANAL. I believe that protected classes in the US aren't identifying things such as, "You can't discriminate against a woman". Rather, what they say is, "You can't discriminate based on anything related to gender". There may be some exceptions, like veterans as mentioned above, but they would be the exception.
        • zo1 12y ago
          "You can't discriminate based on anything related to gender" Oh, okay... So affirmative-action programs to empower women and other groups are not discriminating against men due to their gender? Interesting double-standard they have there.
          • rhizome 12y ago
            Can we not?
            • zo1 12y ago
              Have double-standards? We can, and we do. Does that make it right? Most would say no, including me. It's actual quite hypocritical, if you think about it. Putting a double-standard in place to fix a previous double-standard. But, I suppose, with the "power" of the state, most people think they can play social-architect and fix all the world's ills...from their armchair. Standards being only one "weapon" in their arsenal.
• lambda 12y ago
  Huh? Certainly illegal? Then how do you explain spouse and family health care benefits, the cost of which depends on the size of your family?
  • learc83 12y ago
    Because they are passing the cost of the insurance on to the employee. The employer isn't paying you less because you have a family, just charging you more because it costs more. Health insurance offered through your employer also costs more the older you get, but an employer can't just decided to pay you 10% less when you hit 50. Age is a protected class, but that has no impact on what an employer charges for health insurance.