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.
But, generally, I'm not sure that incentivizing people to legally bond themselves to another is necessarily an unquestionably positive thing.
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.
We dont know that.
Unmarried lower income people are more likely to have criminal record, more likely to have mental health issues, more likely to be the ones having hard time to keep jobs, more likely to have drugs related issues. Among women, those who got pregnant before marriage and much harder time to get any money and also are less interesting romance target for guys.
People nowdays see marriage as something you do once you are set by your standars and that strongly biases who marry.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/in-the-balance/2018/...
The fact that a college educated person earns less than what you claim is a mentally unwell, non job having drug addict is sad but no all to unobvious. Why would you think a teaching degree or psych degree major would earn more over their lifetime than a plumber or construction worker.
The fact is single women benefit the most financially from marriage since single uneducated and college educated women have a much higher than average poverty rate.
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.
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.
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.
It’s largely an outgrowth of extreme prosperity and urbanization.
Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes.
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.
Forget what the government does its generally easier to build wealth with two people than one. Theres more flexibility to prevent failure.
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.
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.
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.justi...
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.
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.
>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.
Second, you are nuts if you think this has ANY significant impact on people getting married.
Third, you can file married filed separately.. so while I'm not up on all the details of that, you can probably avoid the simple impacts it might have.
Anyway, that is an extremely crazy weak argument.
Our income at the time, combined, was ~160k.
The mortgage deduction affects anyone with a "large" mortgage, but at current housing prices "large" is becoming the norm.
All these things whether good or bad makes it less likely people settle for pairing together like they typically would have.
The usual argument that says that the government disincentivized marriage is through social safety nets like welfare, particularly ones that pay more for single parents without a spouse in the house, as well as mechanisms like child support payments.
The usual argument that says society has disincentivized marriage is basically through access to sex. There used to be a culture of enforced monogamy, where there was enormous social pressure to be married before having sex, and especially before living with one another. Now, that stigma is largely gone, so the incentive to get married has diminished substantially.
Again, not making a value judgement, just answering the question.
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.