Why Two Parents Are The Ultimate Privilege

[Anonymous]

An interesting interview from Bari Weiss with a UMD Economist, Melissa Kearney, grappling with shifting economic landscapes, optimal family formation and the impact on the development of children. It's interesting that she seems to have gotten so much pushback from colleagues within academia and even editors and the University of Chicago Press regarding the topic and that such a topic, which should be thoroughly researched and discussed, has people walking on eggshells.

https://www.thefp.com/p/why-two-parents-are-the-ultimate-privilege

One summary quote:

Even though we don’t explicitly disincentivize marriage now, our tax and transfer system does implicitly disincentivize marriage. For example, if you’re married and you’re both working, you’re much less likely to qualify for the earned income tax credit because our tax code works where you pool the income across two people. So a woman who might be on the margin of making $30,000 gets the earned income tax credit. If she marries that guy making $50,000, her and her child lose the earned income tax credit and lose Medicaid. This gives her the incentive to cohabit instead of getting married. And so our tax and transfer system unintentionally does discourage marriage—at least between two people who work. We should be getting rid of all of those legacy effects

[Anonymous]

The amount of people choosing to not get married because they'll lose the earned income tax credit is a nonissue, I promise. This type of person doesn't think about stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

[Anonymous]

Growing up in a stable, loving home with two parents who prioritize their children's well being is worth more than a tax break.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I really don’t think the category of people who decided to cohabitate instead of legally marry because of the earned income tax credit is having a meaningful impact on child outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

OP. I don't know that we should, but I also don't know that the second and third order effects alternative models have been fully fleshed out and thought through. With regard to this topic, I guess my question would be how do we recoup some of the benefits of a traditional marriage in a non-marriage model if we are disincentivizing marriage.

[Anonymous]

Wake me when Bari Weiss says anything interesting.

[Anonymous]

This is a correlation vs causation thing. People who value stability, conformity, delayed gratification etc tend to get married. These values are then applied to parenting leading to better outcomes for their children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a correlation vs causation thing. People who value stability, conformity, delayed gratification etc tend to get married. These values are then applied to parenting leading to better outcomes for their children.

Yes, I think you're onto something here.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has two parents. Did she mean married

[Anonymous]

The tax code incentivizes marriage. What is disincentivizes is both spouses working, which is only worth it if both have relatively high paying jobs. It highly disincentivizes working motherhood (assuming most women are lower earning than most men).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The tax code incentivizes marriage. What is disincentivizes is both spouses working, which is only worth it if both have relatively high paying jobs. It highly disincentivizes working motherhood (assuming most women are lower earning than most men).

Gee I wonder why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a correlation vs causation thing. People who value stability, conformity, delayed gratification etc tend to get married. These values are then applied to parenting leading to better outcomes for their children.

So are you suggesting that values have shifted over time, given the marked drop in marriage rates? Surely something more has to explain the trend and/or shifting underlying values, stratified by class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

b/c 2 parents have an easier time raising kids, kids have an easier time with married/co-habiting parents who pool their resources.

2- the second most pernicious effect of our tax code is that it disincentivizes women from working b/c their part time gig, or lower paid gig is taxed at teh rate of their higher earning spouses. Say you are stuck in a bad marriage and are working to get out of it, saving up so that you arent broke- your income is treated as your higher earning spouse's income. That is inherently unfair. 2 working adults should be taxed on their own merits. what they are getting from other pole in terms of resources shouldn't factor into their tax liability unless it exceeds teh lifetime gift amount which is in the millions.

[Anonymous]

I do think that as a society we often disincentivize choices that are good for children. I agree that two parents is better than one, generally.

But to call two parents "the ultimate privilege" is just ignorant. I had two abusive parents. Was I privileged by this? My parents struggled financially and I'm sure that impacted their abusive behavior, but I doubt an income tax credit would have made anything better.

Rather, I think we need to actually invest in families and in children. Rather than an income tax credit, which parents can use any which way to benefit themselves, I would liek to see better societal supports for families and young children, in the form of parenting classes (perhaps mandatory, to be honest), subsidized childcare, better care for pre-and postpartum care for babies and mothers, and a greater investment in making sure K-12 education is of a higher quality across the board and not just in wealthy districts where many of the problems I experienced growing up are less common (though not nonexistent, I should note).

The idea of fixating on a tax credit to parents as a way to give children what they need is asinine. If you change the rule, would that disincentive parents with abusive partners from leaving those partners, for instance?

If you want children to have what they need, give them what they need. I don't personally care if someone gets a tax credit if they get married. It's such a weird thing to focus on.