Anonymous - European Couple and Child Playing with Parrot - 65.211.2 - Metropolitan Museum of Art, from Wikimedia Commons Melissa Kearney’s well-researched new book, “The Two-Parent Privilege,” re-engages a long-standing but delicate topic discussed mainly behind a curtain. Children growing up with two adults in a stable relationship tend to have above-average economic and social outcomes in their later lives. Though many children from all backgrounds have succeeded, no set of government programs has been able to offset, on average, the disadvantages facing those growing up without that “privilege,” as Kearney calls it.
This is a terrific article. I have not been inclined to worry much about "marriage penalties" in tax and transfer programs because as Gene says, doing away with them requires compromising other goals, such as progressivity. It's also very expensive and with limited resources not necessarily the best place to invest or forego revenues. But one reason, I think we need to think harder about all of this in the way he suggests is because cohabitation is becoming far more common. And cohabitation is less stable and enduring than marriage. I'd love to see a study that asked cohabitors how much these tax or transfer rules have affected their decision about when and whether to marry.
Republican seek/get tax breaks for businesses and wealthy people in exchange for uncoordinated, un-thought-through expansions of tax credits and/or entitlements for lower income persons, often with the result of more economic incentive to have kids while not married, have more kids while single, and not make too much money whether single or married
This is a terrific article. I have not been inclined to worry much about "marriage penalties" in tax and transfer programs because as Gene says, doing away with them requires compromising other goals, such as progressivity. It's also very expensive and with limited resources not necessarily the best place to invest or forego revenues. But one reason, I think we need to think harder about all of this in the way he suggests is because cohabitation is becoming far more common. And cohabitation is less stable and enduring than marriage. I'd love to see a study that asked cohabitors how much these tax or transfer rules have affected their decision about when and whether to marry.
Republican seek/get tax breaks for businesses and wealthy people in exchange for uncoordinated, un-thought-through expansions of tax credits and/or entitlements for lower income persons, often with the result of more economic incentive to have kids while not married, have more kids while single, and not make too much money whether single or married