Why Two Parents Are The Ultimate Privilege

[Anonymous]

Some people have no idea the hoops people jump through to keep their handouts coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

You are absolutely wrong. I work at a place where there are a lot of women with only a high school degree. Yeah, they actually do think about finances a lot because they are barely making ends meet. Several of them cohabitate because being head of household for tax reasons is far better than married with two children. They get better health insurance through medicaid than our work, their kids get subsidized child care and summer camps, etc.

A few years ago I helped someone at my job apply for medicaid when they were pregnant because they wanted help understanding if it was better to use the awful health insurance work has or use medicaid. After work I showed her the pros and cons in regards to head of household vs married for taxes and for health insurance and for assistance. I have two cousins who are social workers who explained it all to me. Since then others have come to me and asked the same type of questions and I will help them apply using a laptop I bring in from home. Instead most of them use their smartphones. I print out charts so they can use to their advantage the last paycheck or their W-2 for benefits. Or say this month don't pick up any overtime and apply next month because you are $100 over the limit for something like free lunch.

There are certain communities that are really good at knowing the system and legally getting the maximum benefits. I don't want to name them but for the most part they are not black or latino.

So, white or Asian? Or both, since yet is plural, “communities”?

Middle Eastern people

[Anonymous]

Calling everything privilege is getting absurd. It's not privilege if you have an abusive or neglectful parent. Its not privilege if they put no effort or care into you.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t really marriage that brings better outcomes but the extra income. Single moms with high incomes tend to have successful kids. Didn’t they figure out that the mother’s educational level determines the success of the kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People on this thread are saying the women don’t marry the men because they don’t have good jobs but here’s Janet Yellen in 1996 saying the men don’t marry the women because they don’t have to any more.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/an-analysis-of-out-of-wedlock-births-in-the-united-states/

I had a personally illuminating moment about this when a woman I knew tangentially had a baby and dropped out of college. I was dumbfounded that she would do that - she was the first in her family to go. When I saw her with the baby she was filled with love and joy from the baby which is of course great! Basically the pull of being a mother outweighed the prospect of college and career, or she thought she could have both. The dad was…fine? I don’t know if she thought he’d step up or not or just thought he was good enough but they weren’t married.

There seems to be a real need for more research into what makes women decide to get pregnant when they do.

Women who are raised with healthy and secure parental love and know their worth don't have to have a baby with a dud to experience this love and joy from a baby before they even finish college.

I'm sure millions of women raised with healthy and secure parental love nevertheless had sex and a baby before the ideal time frame. Typically the culprit is a man who doesn't respect a woman's efforts to resist, but she doesn't have to make them either.

Poster is operating from a moralistic universe that is entirely a social construct. Biologically it is entirely normal for girls and women from age 15-45 to experience strong sexual desire because whatever else we might want to think about ourselves and the meaning of our lives, biologically we are meant to reproduce. Anyone who doubts the strength of these urges need only wait for menopause to show them exactly how much of their lives has been compelled by biology rather than reason. And in most cases where the body and mind are sound following childbirth, that biology drives a deep love and elation (oxytocin) rooted in the caretaking of the offspring. That's how babies survive, because biology makes their mothers love them while they are helpless.

[Anonymous]

It makes sense that a child growing up in a 2-parent home is going to have a beter outcome, on average, than those growing up in a 1-parent home. There will be more parent time available to spend with the child helping with homework and so on, and two people are more likey to have a higher income than one person.

And then we look at the rate of children born to unwed mothers:



For some races, it's a staggeringly high number. Those kids are facing a harder path from the get-go, compared to kids born into a 2-parent household. I know with the rise in juvenile crime we've seen lately, people often ask where are the parents. Well, the parent (singular) was probably out working to put food on the table.

https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

[Anonymous]

How about coming up with ways to incentivize boys and men to marry? The problem isn't with mothers, who carry a much heavier burden when it comes to childcare, but with the absentee men who fathered those children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about coming up with ways to incentivize boys and men to marry? The problem isn't with mothers, who carry a much heavier burden when it comes to childcare, but with the absentee men who fathered those children.

Marriage is better for men by every metric. Men shouldn't need to be more incentivized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

My thoughts exactly.

Apparently couple of people did and now it's a thing. I didn't because it was a pain to get out of the first one. More painful than EIC.

[Anonymous]

Don't most people have two parents? Sure, you may be in foster care or one parent may have died but you started out with two. That's not a privilege, that's biology.

Whether these parents chose to stick around to raise you has nothing to do with the tax code. That's dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

NP. Because it’s best for society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I agree with regard to EITC, but you're kidding yourself if you think qualifying for Medicare or CHIP doesn't figure in to people's decisions once they have a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I agree with regard to EITC, but you're kidding yourself if you think qualifying for Medicare or CHIP doesn't figure in to people's decisions once they have a kid.

Ok but we're not talking about that. We're talking specifically about the EITC.

[Anonymous]

https://www.brookings.edu/people/ron-haskins/

Ron Haskins and countless other researchers/policy wonks have been underscoring this and backing it up with data for decades. Many decades.

Kids with two parents have better outcomes.

Households with two parents are less likely to live in poverty.

Delaying parenthood until you have a high school diploma and a job and a partner = less likely to live in poverty, kids have better outcomes, etc.

This is obvious. And backed up by decades of data.

Sadly, it makes people uncomfortable to address the elephant in the room.

I watched a crowd go off on Haskins during a panel held at the Reagan building many, many years ago…long before woke was even a thing. Women literally stood up and screamed, “But I’m a single mom and my kids are thriving in private school!!!” (Of course, that single mom was a prominent figure at a big advocacy org. She had a JD…and a wealthy ex who paid child support…and very likely tuition.)

If the DC policy wonks who lobby on the Hill weren’t open to listening to Haskins present *data* and recommendations 10-15 years ago before the world became so entrenched in identity politics, then I doubt anyone will receive this research any differently.

Bottom line: we can’t legislate family planning or good decisions. We feel sorry for the kids, so we fund safety net projects that ultimately fall short.

And now we have thousands of migrants flooding into the country requiring resources to be shifted.

FTR, I’m a liberal with a SJW job in DC. I care about people and the policies that help them. Now more than ever, I’m convinced we are doing things wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I agree with regard to EITC, but you're kidding yourself if you think qualifying for Medicare or CHIP doesn't figure in to people's decisions once they have a kid.

Ok but we're not talking about that. We're talking specifically about the EITC.

I know several. They're high earners who make about the same and would pay a large tax. They worked out basically a marriage in terms of benefits, wills, etc with lawyers and have been together 15 plus years with kids, but they're not technically married. Seems to work for them.