Post by OverseerCWFJ on Sept 13, 2004 15:23:26 GMT -5
What many once thought of as the fringe is becoming the new normal. Families consisting of breadwinner dads and stay-at-home moms now account for just one-tenth of all households. Married couples with kids, which made up nearly every residence a century ago, now total just 25% -- with the number projected to drop to 20% by 2010, says the Census Bureau. By then, nearly 30% of homes will be inhabited by someone who lives alone.
This unprecedented demographic shift holds vast implications for everything from Corporate America to the culture wars; from government institutions to the legal system. Vast swaths of our social infrastructure are still modeled on the days when our realities were reflected in Leave It to Beaver, not Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Corporate benefits, pensions, taxes, Social Security, educational funding -- all were designed in the last century to favor and encourage marital unions. "There's this pervasive idea in America that puts marriage and family at the center of everyone's lives," says Bella M. DePaulo, visiting professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, "when in fact it's becoming less and less so."
So societally ingrained is matrimony that on their wedding day, a bride and groom become immediately eligible for a bonanza of perks. The notion that married people lose out because they pay more in taxes through the oft-cited marriage penalty is only partly true. Dual-income, high-earning marrieds and low-income couples sometimes suffer the penalty, but for slightly more than half of all spouses, marriage actually slashes tax bills, particularly for those with children. That means, for example, that mega-salary executives with stay-at-home wives get subsidies that single working mothers don't. "It does seem unfair to me that there are single people in our exact same situation who pay more than we do in taxes," says Scott Houser, a tax-code expert and economics professor at California State University at Fresno." Fixing the marriage penalty is just going to make the single penalties worse."
Indeed, the elements are in place for a new form of social warfare. That's because what's occurring is a wealth transfer to the married class, which imposes an array of unseen taxes on singles -- no matter how many people they care for or are dependent on them. (Go to Part III)
This unprecedented demographic shift holds vast implications for everything from Corporate America to the culture wars; from government institutions to the legal system. Vast swaths of our social infrastructure are still modeled on the days when our realities were reflected in Leave It to Beaver, not Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Corporate benefits, pensions, taxes, Social Security, educational funding -- all were designed in the last century to favor and encourage marital unions. "There's this pervasive idea in America that puts marriage and family at the center of everyone's lives," says Bella M. DePaulo, visiting professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, "when in fact it's becoming less and less so."
So societally ingrained is matrimony that on their wedding day, a bride and groom become immediately eligible for a bonanza of perks. The notion that married people lose out because they pay more in taxes through the oft-cited marriage penalty is only partly true. Dual-income, high-earning marrieds and low-income couples sometimes suffer the penalty, but for slightly more than half of all spouses, marriage actually slashes tax bills, particularly for those with children. That means, for example, that mega-salary executives with stay-at-home wives get subsidies that single working mothers don't. "It does seem unfair to me that there are single people in our exact same situation who pay more than we do in taxes," says Scott Houser, a tax-code expert and economics professor at California State University at Fresno." Fixing the marriage penalty is just going to make the single penalties worse."
Indeed, the elements are in place for a new form of social warfare. That's because what's occurring is a wealth transfer to the married class, which imposes an array of unseen taxes on singles -- no matter how many people they care for or are dependent on them. (Go to Part III)
. If I had a wife, we would have a combined bank account and two heads are better than one. The support system is missing.