People who are married have access to many important federal benefits and protections that are not available to single people or the important people in their lives, such as a close friend or a special relative. Those advantages include economic ones, health-related ones, advantages relevant to children, and many others. The economic benefits include, among others:
- Access to a partner’s Social Security benefits
- The right to inherit property even if your spouse dies without a will
- Tax breaks on estate taxes
- Tax breaks on inheritance taxes
- Exemptions from penalties on IRAs that unmarried people pay
- Spouses can give each other huge monetary gifts without paying taxes, and together, they can give twice that amount to a recipient and the recipient won’t have to pay taxes
- Income tax breaks (for married couples filing jointly compared to solo single people)
In her new book, The Love Jones Cohort: Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class, University of Maryland sociologist Kris Marsh argues for the adoption of new laws and policies that would benefit people who are single and living alone (SALA). For example, people who live alone are considered members of a household – a household of one – but they are not considered families. They often have important people in their lives, and Black singles in particular often provide financial support to friends and extended family members.
If single people living alone were legally recognized as families, either on their own or together with the important people in their lives, they would have access to more of the benefits and protections that are currently denied to them. Those benefits include the federal advantages such as the ones listed above, as well as more informal ones. For example, if single people and their closest friends were considered families, then they would not have to hope that cell phone providers would include friends in their family plans; close friends would already legally qualify as family.
I asked Dr. Marsh to tell us a bit more about these ideas. I also asked her about another important point she made in her book.
- In The Love Jones Cohort, you make the case that people who are single and living alone should be considered families of one. You said that if they were regarded as families, then they would enjoy all sorts of “social, political, and financial benefits” that they do not get now. Can you describe some of those benefits?
Dr. Marsh: To provide an example of the financial benefits that families are afforded, I draw from one that people might find benign and the other that is more egregious. First, being able to benefit from a family cell phone plan when you only have one phone. Second, is the federal tax structure that has a singlehood penalty and a marriage advantage for certain families that is built into its fabric (Brown, 2021; DePaulo, 2006). The Love Jones Cohort are related to themselves and need to be considered a family (of one nonetheless) to receive such benefits.
If you do not subscribe to this first argument, maybe you will embrace the second one. The Love Jones Cohort tell us that their friends are central to their lifestyle. We need to embrace and institutionalize augmented families, where the Love Jones Cohort can establish families with friends, in a legal manner. This allows the Love Jones Cohort family to access benefits from benign cell phone plans to more substantive benefits in the realm of asset management and wealth planning.
- You make the important point throughout your book that people who are single and living alone (SALA) often value people beyond just nuclear family members. You make the case for “The SALA Family Plan,” which would legally recognize people such as our friends. You said that with such a plan, people who are single and living alone could have access to “substantive benefits in the realm of asset and wealth management.” Can you describe some of those benefits? Also, is the idea of “families of one” different from “The SALA Family Plan”?
Dr. Marsh: The Cohort mentioned that they are happy to consider nieces and nephews, godchildren, and friend’s children as potential heirs to their assets. Among the Love Jones Cohort, friends are often perceived as an extension of their families, cast as daily characters with starring roles in their SALA lifestyles and emotional well-being. Members of the Cohort expressed how their friends met various aspect of their social needs, whether this be workout friends, golf buddies, and foodie fellows.
Given their SALA status, their transference of wealth is not a straight-line intergenerational transfer from parent to children, but what can be termed a segmented intergenerational transference of wealth. In other words, the Love Jones Cohort are finding innovative ways to transfer their assets to family members, friends, and other segments of the Black community. Given these decisions and choices, friends of the Cohort should be considered family members or what Sociologist Andrew Billingsley would term augmented families (non-related individuals) to help and to serve as benefactors with estate planning for the Cohort. “The SALA Family Plan” can include those that are families of one and/or augmented families.
From Bella: My main interest is in single people who want to be single, but Dr. Marsh has some important insights relevant to those who want to marry. My last question was about that.
- An important point you make throughout your book, that is often missing from other discussions of singlehood, is that choices about how to live are not just about personal wishes, values, efforts, or personality traits. For example, if you want to get married, it is not enough to work on yourself and figure out how to be a desirable partner. More systematic, structural factors matter, too, and those factors are not the same for everyone. Can you explain that?
Dr. Marsh: Since the release of “The Love Jones Cohort” I have been asked how we can improve marriage rates among Black Americans. I often respond by saying: what if we pay reparations to Black Americans, might that change marriage rates? Whether you agree or disagree with the answer, I am trying to broaden the conversation to demonstrate how social context matters when we think about singlehood. For example, in 1995, social scientists Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro made compelling arguments for adding wealth (particularly homeownership) as a necessary indicator for defining the middle class. In their 2020 book, however, Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen eloquently document the devastating, systemic racial wealth disparities that lead to a fragility of the Black middle class (Darity & Mullen, 2020). Setting out their case for reparations for Black Americans, meanwhile, Darity and Mullen (2020) argue “Black Americas cannot close the racial wealth gap by independent or autonomous action.” I am trying to argue, suggest, and/or get readers to understand that individual behavior alone may not change Black marriage rates.
From Bella: Thank you, Dr. Marsh, for your answers and for your important new book. To readers who want to learn more about Dr. Marsh and her new book, her website is here.
[Notes: (1) The opinions expressed here do not represent the official positions of Unmarried Equality. (2) I’ll post all these blog posts at the UE Facebook page; please join our discussions there. (3) For links to previous columns, click here.]
About Bella DePaulo
