Why Two Parents Are The Ultimate Privilege

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

Dp. Heard a really good interview with her on npr. Basically she argues we throw tons of money at school and welfare programs for struggling kids and get very poor outcomes for that money (especially for boys.). If we instead invested in getting and keeping parents married we’d be making a much better investment.

The trick is how do you do that? And her answer seems to be we need to ensure good paying blue collar jobs for men. Otherwise women cant/won’t marry them when they get pregnant.

I'd agree with all of this.

You'd be remiss to think that women don't marry in order to make sure they still have social welfare programs though. I worked a low wage job through college and it was eye opening. My coworkers knew to the hour how much they had to work and not work in order to make sure their wages fell below the amount needed for different programs. Quite a few lived together, but refused to get married because they'd lose benefits. Instead they were engaged.

This. I interviewed at least 30 women for an open position in Maryland that we needed to fill with someone working 38 hours. The position paid workers comp, vacation, SS etc. At least 16 of the women told me they could not work more than 18 hours.
After talking to multiple women who would not accept a fulltime job I realized they lose the money that hits their "card" from the government. Multiple women told me they could not work more than 18 hours. Essentially business people compete against the government benefits for workers. Government programs disincentivizes women to work and get promoted and get ahead.

In my experience the single Moms would be better off married with a partner to help out in emergencies and to provide a second income. I've had to put $1500 on my credit card to get a single Mom's car released from the repo man so she would have transportation to come to work. This was for a nice lady who had zero network of support. I've never once heard her mention the daughter's father.

+1

EBT card disincentivizes work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wake me when Bari Weiss says anything interesting.

That’s every day. She’s one of the few real journalists left.

[Anonymous]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C02phXzNAHW/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

He’s not wrong…in fact there is data to back up everything he says in the short clip…but look at the reactions by the rest of the group. Nobody wants to hear it.

[Anonymous]

My mom worked many years in child support enforcement. This was obviously a while ago. She said it was very common for the moms to claim she "did not know where the father was" so that she could collect benefits (since the father wasn't paying child support) all the while the father was secretly living in the home with the mom and kids. They used to do random home visits at 11pm at night and would find the dad there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom worked many years in child support enforcement. This was obviously a while ago. She said it was very common for the moms to claim she "did not know where the father was" so that she could collect benefits (since the father wasn't paying child support) all the while the father was secretly living in the home with the mom and kids. They used to do random home visits at 11pm at night and would find the dad there.

Then child support enforcement got wise and started withholding TANF (welfare) benefits until the mom complied by naming the father. Then they would go after the father for support, and any amount recovered offset the welfare payment…which is as it should be.

Nonetheless, some advocates believe this is unfair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom worked many years in child support enforcement. This was obviously a while ago. She said it was very common for the moms to claim she "did not know where the father was" so that she could collect benefits (since the father wasn't paying child support) all the while the father was secretly living in the home with the mom and kids. They used to do random home visits at 11pm at night and would find the dad there.

Then child support enforcement got wise and started withholding TANF (welfare) benefits until the mom complied by naming the father. Then they would go after the father for support, and any amount recovered offset the welfare payment…which is as it should be.

Nonetheless, some advocates believe this is unfair.

Those advocates believe it is racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom worked many years in child support enforcement. This was obviously a while ago. She said it was very common for the moms to claim she "did not know where the father was" so that she could collect benefits (since the father wasn't paying child support) all the while the father was secretly living in the home with the mom and kids. They used to do random home visits at 11pm at night and would find the dad there.

So would this be reported as a single mother or two deadbeat parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Surely you understand the concepts of outliers no? And that some times when looking at population levels of data, summarization and trends can be useful?

No one is saying that it’s impossible for a kid to be stuck with two dud parents. But, on average, having both parents is wildly beneficial to the kid, as evidenced in the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom worked many years in child support enforcement. This was obviously a while ago. She said it was very common for the moms to claim she "did not know where the father was" so that she could collect benefits (since the father wasn't paying child support) all the while the father was secretly living in the home with the mom and kids. They used to do random home visits at 11pm at night and would find the dad there.

Then child support enforcement got wise and started withholding TANF (welfare) benefits until the mom complied by naming the father. Then they would go after the father for support, and any amount recovered offset the welfare payment…which is as it should be.

Nonetheless, some advocates believe this is unfair.

Not sure how I feel about it but it sounds like Bari Weiss is one those who think it’s unfair. This is exactly her point that in giving greater support to single parents than married parents we inadvertently discourage people from marrying.

Bari Weiss is saying we should give married parents with $40k of income the same support we give single parents with $20k of income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't think two high earners are eligible for the EITC, it phases out with income. They may have looked into other tax advantages but that one isn't why they're not married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

Dp. Heard a really good interview with her on npr. Basically she argues we throw tons of money at school and welfare programs for struggling kids and get very poor outcomes for that money (especially for boys.). If we instead invested in getting and keeping parents married we’d be making a much better investment.

The trick is how do you do that? And her answer seems to be we need to ensure good paying blue collar jobs for men. Otherwise women cant/won’t marry them when they get pregnant.

This is like suggesting we undo global capitalism and labor offshoring. Seems a bit wishful and kind of retrogressive, unless you are talking protectionist measures that will drive up costs.

How does she suggest we do the "ensuring" of those jobs?

Right? This would require some serious economic policy changes that I don't think rich Republicans would be fans of. Discouraging offshoring? Focusing on high blue collar salaries, which has historically happened due to union advocacy? I'm super pro-labor so im not saying the latter is a bad idea, but it doesn't sound on brand for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

You can’t look at individual tax provisions in isolation. Plus, the examples given sound like the bullshit that people would rather take a poverty level relief check than work for higher wages.

Being married also has a host of economic benefits that are worth more than the EITC and Medicaid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This makes no sense. High earners don't qualify for the EITC and would save a lot in taxes filing jointly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

You can’t look at individual tax provisions in isolation. Plus, the examples given sound like the bullshit that people would rather take a poverty level relief check than work for higher wages.

Being married also has a host of economic benefits that are worth more than the EITC and Medicaid.

For many people, that is exactly the case. Low check + benefits is preferable to a higher paying job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why should be incentivize marriage, OP?

Dp. Heard a really good interview with her on npr. Basically she argues we throw tons of money at school and welfare programs for struggling kids and get very poor outcomes for that money (especially for boys.). If we instead invested in getting and keeping parents married we’d be making a much better investment.

The trick is how do you do that? And her answer seems to be we need to ensure good paying blue collar jobs for men. Otherwise women cant/won’t marry them when they get pregnant.

This is like suggesting we undo global capitalism and labor offshoring. Seems a bit wishful and kind of retrogressive, unless you are talking protectionist measures that will drive up costs.

How does she suggest we do the "ensuring" of those jobs?

Right? This would require some serious economic policy changes that I don't think rich Republicans would be fans of. Discouraging offshoring? Focusing on high blue collar salaries, which has historically happened due to union advocacy? I'm super pro-labor so im not saying the latter is a bad idea, but it doesn't sound on brand for her.

+1 The vast majority of Republicans didn’t even vote for the infrastructure bill which is the biggest sop to employment for non-college educated men in history.