Why are there marriage incentives if getting married for the financial benefits is abusing the system?

The government does like marriage, or it definetly did back in the day. It legally bound the father to the children, which before DNA testing was more important. Also, back when women were more dependent financially it gave them more protection. The marriage and property laws still protect spouses financially if a spouse abandons or wants out of the marriage, which seems to be a better way for society to think so the laws reinorce it. The cultures where people feel little committment or obligation to each other or their children seems to suffer some negative consequences, and one could argue part of the government’s role is to protect society at large.

Because it fits society’s ideals about what people are “supposed” to do. People who live non-traditional lifestyles are harder to control.

Marriage was pushed as a way to financially protect women and children from being left financially destitute, especially “back in the good old days” when women stayed home with the children and didn’t have the education or job skills to support a family on their own. The benefit for men is that statitically married men enjoy better health than unmarried men, and live longer, especially if they wait until after age 25 to get married.

No, you’re giving the “government” too much credit. The “financial benefits” for married people were nothing more than an attempt to curry favor, and thus get votes. There is no great “purpose: behind them.

I have friends who started dating in high school. When we graduated, they got married in order to take advantage of the benefits – one of which was that they could live in a university apartment-style residence on campus for much cheaper than off-campus. I’m not sure exactly what the other benefits were, but I think they had to do with getting more in student loans.

We all thought it was weird for them to get married at 19. It’s pretty unusual for people of our generation (born in 1980) to get married that young. Even if they did it initially to take advantage of the system, they’re still happily married now, almost 12 years later. Luckily for them, theirs ended up being a great relationship that didn’t suffer from jumping into marriage.

As for the actual question, I’m sorry I don’t have any insight. I just wanted to throw out the idea that even if a couple gets married in order to better their financial lives, it can work out in the long run.

The military benefits for being married are mostly to help keep the family together with multiple moves and to help offset the cost of housing with one spouse possibly not being able to work. It can be hard for the spouse to find a new job in the new area right away or even at all. Even jobs that are ‘in demand’ can be hard to come by in some locations.

If a soldier were to get married just for the extra money or on post housing, it would be abusing the system because they are taking those things away from others that would legitimately need it (especially if he didn’t have his spouse living with him and he lived in a house on post). On post housing sometimes has wait lists that span on for months at a time, sometimes even to a year or more.

I will be honest and say military people do marry for the extra money; however, most of them find out the expenses created by being married usually are about equal to the increase in allowances. The military pay increases are not actually incentives. You get BAS because you are no longer allowed to eat in the chow hall for free. This is currently $325.04 for enlisted and $223.84 for officers, but now you have to pay for all of your food. BAH is based upon location and rank. You can sometimes gain some money using this by renting a cheap place instead of living on base, but the landlords are also fully aware of how much the BAH rate in their location is and price accordingly. If you live in a high cost of living area, you also receive COLA at a slightly higher rate than you would without any dependents, but that is usually used to purchase the extra items you need.

Unfortunately, many do not calculate the actual cost of the changes they must make in their lifestyle (expenses) by having dependents instead they focus on what they will be receiving not what they also have to spend. The point is the extra money looks like incentives to marry, but realistically it is usually awash unless they are dual military.

Ignoring the military benefits the joint tax return doesn’t really benefit a couple unless one works and the other doesn’t. I’m ignoring the military simply because when I was in the service, I received no benefits for being married. What has transpired since then is fuzzy to me.

If both individuals in the relationship are earning comparable salaries (50–50, or even 70–30) there is a marriage penalty. I one earner is making virtually all the income there is a bonus as you can see here (scroll down to page 4, table 3). Here (browser page 8 labeled as page 658, table 1) is a, rather moronic article that looks at it from the other side, as a singles penalty. I use it only to show they both use the same data. It only becomes a marriage bonus if one is earning virtually all the income.

Virtually all our tax laws were intended to promote the single income family. Joint tax returns, community property, inheritance, all designed to insure that both would reap the benefit if only one was earning income.

The question becomes “do we want to eliminate the incentive to have a stay at home parent”. If both are working the tax actually penalizes marriage. Couples without children seldom have a single earner household, whether married or not. Therefore they get penalized. I’m struggling with the concept that people would get married for the financial benefits.

@CaptainHarley That make sense too. But, received votes because of the tax breaks, and/or received votes because the religious conservative think everyone should be married? My biggest gripe about laws regarding marriage is that some states require people who want to divorce to be legally separated for 6 months to a year, or stay in the same domicile to not risk losing rights for several months. If children are involved I understand some measures to ensure children are ok, but that sounds like religious BS that by the time a person gets to the point that they are reay to divorce the government can say no for a few months. I wonder how often that “cooling off” period results in people staying together?

@JLeslie

For several years, I use to counsel couples for a living. ( I STILL can’t believe I did that! ) In my admittedly somewhat limited experience with waiting periods, very few relationships indeed were salvaged. Usually, by the time the parties are talking about divorce, the chance to save the marriage has passed. This is especially true if one or both parties have seen a lawyer. ( Lawyers don’t get paid to heal marriages! )