Archive for January, 2011
Celebrities and historians change the way we look at marriage
Thanks to AtMP members Marissa, William, Meaghan & Michele for these recent notes. Keep ‘em coming!
“I just saw an awesome segment of an interview with Oprah Winfrey on CNN.com in which she expresses her views on marriage, and I wanted to pass it along. I just love knowing that such a successful woman as Oprah shares my views on this subject!”
“Check out ‘Social historian Stephanie Coontz ‘Stirs’ Up ‘The Feminine Mystique’ 47 Later’ on NPR. I believe there are many more layers to what she discusses here, but still… I’m a huge fan of Stephanie Coontz. My old favorite is Dr. Coontz on Fresh Air. A truly astonishing and concise 20 minute explanation of the provenance modern “traditional” marriage.”
“File this one away under the ending stigma part of our mission: George Clooney, bachelor. Also, caught an interview with Ricky Gervais following his hosting of the Oscars in which he spoke to the idea that he has no reason to get officially married and has been living in a committed relationship with a woman for 25 years.”
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Jan 31st, 2011 by Nicky
News of note
Florida Governor Rick Scott says his “personal position” is that only “married couples” should adopt children. Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service details federal tax benefits for people who adopt children.
An international expert says the state of Vermont could launch a single-payer health system. Meanwhile, Vermont’s 2006 health reforms seem to be covering more people (no data on marital status, however).
A new book says it’s a good idea to delay marriage and parenthood, but fails to question why those acts are equated with adulthood.
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adoption, health care, matrimania
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Jan 21st, 2011 by Nicky
The big tax deal shorted singles, again
While I’m on the topic of how your marital status shapes the way you’re affected by major federal legislation – let’s talk taxes! At the end of the year, Congress passed and the President signed a complicated tax package. In covering that news, many media reports mentioned the so-called “marriage penalty.” So let’s get that out of the way first. The Congressional Research Service says
“At all but the lowest and very highest income levels, singles pay higher taxes than married couples. The analysis of the marriage penalty indicates that marriage penalties have largely been eliminated for those without children throughout the middle-income range, but this change has inevitably expanded marriage bonuses. Marriage penalties remain at the high and low income levels and could also apply to those with children, where the penalty or bonus is not very well defined. But by and large, the current system is likely to encourage rather than discourage marriage and favors married couples over singles.”
This CRS report is a brand new update of the 2004 report that was the basis for AtMP’ s original tax policy analysis. If you value this kind of analysis, please donate $30 so I can purchase the new report, read the full detail and update our materials!
Speaking of details, did you know that 56% of taxpayers are unmarried? Due to our lower incomes (simplistically speaking), we paid 27% of all taxes after credits. (I calculated these 2008 figures from IRS data)
The fact that so many unmarried people have relatively low incomes means that we really got the short end of the stick in December’s big tax package. Our friend Shawn Fremstad does a great job of explaining how
some 51 million taxpayers will see their taxes go up in 2011. The vast majority of them—40 million tax units—are low-wage workers with incomes below $35,000. Low-income workers are the only income group that will lose income this year compared to 2010 under the deal.
I agree with Shawn’s suggested solution of “an increase in the EITC for low-wage workers without children.” The EITC, or Earned Income Tax Credit, is often called the U.S.’s biggest anti-poverty program (right up there with Social Security). The excessive impact of marital status on EITC is one policy area where complete ideological opposites can find common ground. I even find myself agreeing with Sam Brownback (and that’s REALLY funny!)
By the way, if you’re thrilled at the thought of further researching marital status & EITC, this student paper from Colgate University has a very nice bibliography and lit review.
2010 was a good year for scholarly papers on marriage and taxes. Puckett could have used our help seeing through the tired “case for marriage,” but I certainly like his conclusion:
The joint return (and special rates for married taxpayers) should be abolished as an incoherent penalty and subsidy of marriage. Joint filing is indefensible as a component of a progressive tax system. Marriage has many benefits, but the benefit most deserving of support is marriage’s connection with parenting. The contemporary reality is that parenting will occur outside of marriage, and parenting has high social benefits and high private costs. Although increased refundable child credits would be the most progressive method of implementing a parenting subsidy, simply retaining head of household status seems more likely.
I couldn’t bring myself to read all of Kornhauser‘s latest article. There’s no debating this, and I choose to see it as a call to action (whether or not that’s what she intended):
The nature of family, marriage, and religion are also important issues in America and the tax debates about the marital unit are an important area in which they are expressed. Consequently, congressional actions and rhetoric regarding the marital unit and marriage penalty—even if primarily symbolic — reaffirm a national commitment to marriage as instrumental to American democracy and tacitly acknowledge a similar importance of religion (which supports marriage).
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economics & poverty, statistics, taxes
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Jan 13th, 2011 by Nicky
Repeal healthcare reform? What’s at stake for unmarried people
The national health care reform law that passed last year took some important steps towards getting marital status out of people’s way when they’re trying to access affordable health care. It should not be repealed.
One nice step is that young couples no longer have to put off marriage in order to stay on their parents’ health plans.
A much bigger step is increased coverage for single people with low incomes. Scheduled to start in 2014, people who earn less than $15,000 per year will be eligible for Medicaid in every state. That’s hugely important because Medicaid has primarily been available to low-income mothers and children, with eligibility varying state by state.
Obviously, health care reform affects all of us, for reasons that go far beyond our marital status, and there are many other places you can find information on how it affects seniors, women, businesses, etc. But even if you care only about equality for unmarried people and ending marital status discrimination, you should speak out against repealing health care reform.
(If you’re completely sure the repeal effort is just a publicity stunt that doesn’t matter, then please take a moment to join the call for single payer, the one reform that really takes marital status out of the health care equation.)
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economics & poverty, health care
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Jan 7th, 2011 by Nicky
Predictions for 2011
If you’re on our email list, you recently saw my hopeful predictions for 2011. Here’s a bit more detail about what they mean and why I think they could come true.
Political candidates in majority-unmarried districts will drop their old “families first” slogans and start campaigning “for every single one of us.” An important use of the decennial Census is to redraw Congressional district lines so that each district contains roughly 1/435th of the population (that’s a simplification, of course). After the 2000 Census, our friends at Unmarried America produced a wonderful list of unmarried majority cities. We already have two volunteers willing to help crunch the latest Census figures, and we already have great feedback about what unmarried voters want candidates to say. We’ve sketched out a plan to find and draw attention to Congressional districts where most adults are unmarried. If you’re good with data and/or publicity, we can use your help to get this off the ground!
Scientists will discover that marital status discrimination is bad for people’s health, urging companies to treat unmarried employees fairly as a way to reduce healthcare costs. A fantastic advisory committee is helping us develop a research framework that could demonstrate the impact of marital status discrimination on public health. Our objective is to build widespread, high-level recognition that correlations between marital status and health outcomes are caused by laws or regulations that use marital status to determine access to healthcare. Demonstrating causality will support AtMP’s position that marital status discrimination in healthcare is a social justice problem to be solved.
Congress will rewrite the welfare law, replacing the 1990′s “marriage-only” preamble with words like: “the most important factor in a child’s upbringing is whether the child is brought up in a loving, healthy, supportive environment.” Those very words are in the preamble of the House bill mentioned in my last post – it gained 39 co-sponsors and supportive feedback from the administration last year. AtMP started advocating these changes a decade ago and we’re committed to seeing it through to success.
Major foundations will give AtMP grants to hire a full-time researcher / organizer to advance these and other projects. For the first time, a well-known LGBT foundation has invited AtMP to request a grant, and an experienced grant writer has volunteered to help me write a most compelling proposal. Wish us luck!
Here at AtMP we’re positively psyched about 2011. Here are some of my hopeful predictions, plus a little bit about why I believe they could come true:
C Political candidates in majority-unmarried districts will drop their old “families first” slogans and start campaigning “for every single one of us.” We already have two volunteers crunching the latest Census figures, and we’ve sketched out a plan to find and draw attention to Congressional districts where most adults are unmarried.
C Scientists will discover that marital status discrimination is bad for people’s health, urging companies to treat unmarried employees fairly as a way to reduce healthcare costs. A fantastic advisory committee is helping us develop a research framework that could demonstrate the impact of marital status discrimination on public health.
C Congress will rewrite the welfare law, replacing the 1990′s “marriage-only” preamble with words like: “the most important factor in a child’s upbringing is whether the child is brought up in a loving, healthy, supportive environment.” Those words were in the preamble of a House bill that gained 39 co-sponsors and supportive feedback from the administration last year. AtMP started advocating these changes a decade ago and we’re committed to seeing it through to success.
C Major foundations will give AtMP grants to hire a full-time researcher / organizer to advance these and other projects. A well-known LGBT foundation has invited AtMP to request a grant, and an experienced grant writer is helping me write a most compelling proposal.
Of course, I’ll announce the results of this work on the Unmarried Blog,
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advocacy, economics & poverty, health care, inside AtMP, statistics
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Jan 3rd, 2011 by Nicky
