
The High Price of Being Single in America - Kopion
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/the-high-price-of-being-single-in-america/267043/
======
rayiner
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
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
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.

~~~
daemin
I also found it interesting that they pick the women's salaries from
statistical averages, but don't do the same for men, but just extrapolate
based on some hand waving guess of a multiplier.

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mdesq
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.

~~~
tomjen3
We do not exist for the benefit of the state, the state exists for the benefit
of the people. Stop using tax resources to discriminate based on lifestyle
choices.

~~~
csense
Let's suppose hypothetically, for the sake of argument, that numerous careful,
politically neutral scientific studies have been conducted, and they reveal
that children who grow up in two-parent homes have significantly better
outcomes -- fewer suffer abuse and neglect; on average they get better grades;
they have more education and get better jobs; they live longer, healthier and
happier lives.

Let's suppose these studies correctly controlled for all conceivable other
variables like race, income level, education, profession, etc.

Don't we owe it to those children to make sure that as many as possible are
born into two-parent families? Isn't a financial incentive to marry a great
way to balance society's interest in maximizing the well-being of its future
citizens in this way, while still allowing its citizens who desire alternative
lifestyles the freedom to do so?

I have no idea whether real studies have been conducted that are similar to my
hypothetical ones. But based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence,
and without knowledge of scientific evidence to the contrary, it seems
reasonable to me to assume that heterosexual two-parent families generally
have better outcomes.

~~~
nichtich
Then let's suppose there's a study that shows children who grow up in a rich
family grow up healthier and happier and have better education and better
jobs. Don't we owe it to those children to make sure that as many as possible
are born into rich families? Raising children as single parents is already
hard enough, a financial disincentive for them will only make matters worse.

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jquery
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.

~~~
montecarl
Get rid of marriage from the law entirely. Marriage could be expressed in a
standard contract that gives the sorts of rights the it currently carries. The
state shouldn't have any say in who enters this sort of agreement.

~~~
seldo
This was Mitt Romney's suggestion for gay marriage, but the truth is that
there are all sorts of rights that can only be conferred by marriage. For
example: you can't write a contract that says your business partner should pay
less taxes, but marriage can. You can't write a contract that gives your
business partner the right to a green card, but marriage can. There's
literally hundreds more.

We are a species that likes to pair-bond; we consider it a greater hardship to
separate members of a pair than members of a looser association like
friendship. The legislation reflects that. Social engineering via tax breaks
are a dumb idea, but deleting the concept of marriage from law entirely is
impractical and probably undesirable.

~~~
waqf
I am torn, because I want to upvote your first para which accurately addresses
the points raised by the parent; yet your second para is all fluff, empty
rhetoric, assertions totally without justification.

If you are a new kind of troll, I salute you.

~~~
seldo
It is never my intention to troll, as I hope my commenting record attests.
Which of my statements do you consider unjustified?

~~~
waqf
I was thinking specifically of the statement "[D]eleting the concept of
marriage from law entirely is [...] probably undesirable."

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peapicker
"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
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).

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kamaal
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
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
>>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.

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zdw
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
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
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
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
> 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
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...](http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias_Study.htm)
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.

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bennesvig
"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?

~~~
graeme
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.

~~~
YokoZar
Men are also more likely to take dangerous jobs that are more likely to get
them killed, which pay better

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ms4720
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.

~~~
dfc
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.

~~~
darkarmani
> 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.

------
aswanson
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
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
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.

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benevpayor
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.

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dgbsco
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.

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clarky07
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.)

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wiredfool
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.

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guyzero
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.

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rogerbinns
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-
benef...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-
benefits-30190.html)

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thattallguy
This post is sponsored by ...

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elchief
Perhaps they should find husbands then.

