Answer: Over $100,000. My wife’s already expensive so tacking on a marriage penalty violates my 8th amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
I know most of you don’t know what a girl is but it’s still interesting data. Strong families make for strong communities, we should be working to make sure that government policies encourage families rather than discourage them.
How Big Is the Marriage Tax? Now We Know | John C. Goodman
There are many reasons to care about this. Academic studies find that marriage stabilizes relationships, improves children’s outcomes and facilitates the development of labor market skills for the adults. In general, marriage is correlated with economic well-being. One study reports that married couples’ average per capita wealth is more than twice that of the never-married.
Until recently researchers have not had the tools to fully measure the full extent of government-created marriage penalties. A new study by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff and his colleagues gives us the most accurate estimate to date.
The study includes more than 30 different federal and state entitlement programs—all of which condition benefits on the beneficiaries’ incomes. In addition to federal income and payroll taxes, it includes the tax rates in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. And it includes the effects of marriage on such elderly entitlement benefits as Social Security and Medicare. No previous study comes close to this level of careful measurement.
One finding: young adults with low- or middle-income jobs pay a heavy price if they marry. When higher tax rates are combined with a reduction in welfare/entitlement benefits, the economic loss from marriage is equal to between one-and-a-half and two years of income, on average.
I know most of you don’t know what a girl is but it’s still interesting data. Strong families make for strong communities, we should be working to make sure that government policies encourage families rather than discourage them.
How Big Is the Marriage Tax? Now We Know | John C. Goodman
There are many reasons to care about this. Academic studies find that marriage stabilizes relationships, improves children’s outcomes and facilitates the development of labor market skills for the adults. In general, marriage is correlated with economic well-being. One study reports that married couples’ average per capita wealth is more than twice that of the never-married.
Until recently researchers have not had the tools to fully measure the full extent of government-created marriage penalties. A new study by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff and his colleagues gives us the most accurate estimate to date.
The study includes more than 30 different federal and state entitlement programs—all of which condition benefits on the beneficiaries’ incomes. In addition to federal income and payroll taxes, it includes the tax rates in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. And it includes the effects of marriage on such elderly entitlement benefits as Social Security and Medicare. No previous study comes close to this level of careful measurement.
One finding: young adults with low- or middle-income jobs pay a heavy price if they marry. When higher tax rates are combined with a reduction in welfare/entitlement benefits, the economic loss from marriage is equal to between one-and-a-half and two years of income, on average.
