The High Price of Being Single in America

[Shadowman]

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/the-high-price-of-...

Lots of other stuff but this is part of what is in the article:

  "Yet more than 1,000 laws provide overt legal or financial benefits to married couples. Marital privileging marginalizes the 50 percent of Americans who are single. The U.S. government is the main perpetrator, but private companies follow its lead. Thus marital privilege pervades nearly every facet of our lives. Insurance policies—ranging from health, to life, to home, to car—cost more, on average, for unmarried people compared to those who are married. It is not a federal crime for landlords to discriminate against potential renters based on their marital status. And so on."

"Social Security privileges marrieds in many ways. For example, our hypothetical married woman could receive up to 50 percent of her husband's benefits while her husband is alive.  Spouses can also receive 100 percent of their dead spouse's benefits, if the deceased's benefits are higher than the recipient's would have been."

[Grandma Helen]

I don't want to see this turn into a political discussion, but there is one section that is incorrect.  Based on the Fair Housing Act this is what is prohibited: 

Who Does the Federal Fair Housing Act Protect?:

The seven protected classes under the Federal Fair Housing Act are:

• race
• color
• religion
• sex
• national origin
• disability (added in 1988)
• familial status (having children under 18 in a household, including pregnant women) (added in 1988)

It is in fact illegal to discriminate against someone based on marital status. 

Today we are celebrating the inauguration of our president and Martin Luther King's birthday.  Let's celebrate the great things this country offers. 

[Eaglewoman]

 In SS, it is also biased as when you are married and a spouse dies you get $250 towards burial expense, if you have no surviving spouse you get nothing, although some one still has to see that you are buried.

[oldmike]

Personally, I think we should eliminate all benefits to married couples/families and treat everyone the same. There is no reason to continue this antiquated concept, and to bring more people/couples into that definition does no good whatsoever.

There is one argument that I heard about not allowing unmarried people to live in an apartment -- whether true or not, I'm not saying -- the concept is that married people/families are more stable and less likely to be "bad" tenants. Other than that, there is no reason to give benefits to married people and not to unmarried people, so eliminate them all, that's what I propose.

Discrimination, on the other hand, is an interesting concept. If we don't treat people differently, then there's no discrimination, right?

[Shadowman]

There are a lot of things that are illegal but still occur; age discrimination in the job market usually comes to mind first for me.

I agree that the government should not be in the marriage business. Our tax system is riddled with different treatment for married and unmarried.  From what we know marriage evolved into a semblance of what we would recognize four or five thousand years back due to societal changes, later the church got into the act, government, the marriage industry, etc.

When my dad died back in 1976 my mother received two checks for $250 dollars by accident for burial.  She was extremely scrupulous and I remember helping her send the extra check back to SS even though she was living on nothing.

[oldmike]

I ask for nothing, that way when I get nothing, I got what I asked for!

After my dad died, my mother was taken care of for the rest of her life by the US Postal Service retirement system. Nice for her, but seems like a bad deal for everyone else. If dad had a private retirement account, he could've named her as the beneficiary and had the same or similar result.

[TornadoWoman]

There is one more paragraph in the Social Security Section that is incomplete.  It says the following:  

"That's a lot of money the government (and single contributors to Social Security) gives to people for saying "I do." But perhaps nothing illustrates the power of marital privilege more than this: unmarried people can ride on another person's Social Security benefits if they were previously married to that person for at least ten years and are 62 and not entitled to Social Security based on their own work history."  I WAS entitled to SS based on my own work history, but I was able to collect under his benefits anyway.

I was married to my former husband for more than 10 years.  He had already passed away when I retired at 62.  I was not aware that I could collect on HIS Social Security rather than mine if I so desired until a friend of mine  told me that.  Since I didn't work for a lot of years raising my 4 children; and when I DID work, I worked for the State of Texas, so my income was WAY less than his.  I am collecting  more SS by filing under his benefits than I would have under mine.

[Grandma Helen]

These benefits were set up many years ago, when more women did stay home to raise their children.  It is becoming obsolete with most families both partners work, but for now it is still true.  The same holds true of many private pensions. 

[Serenity]

I'd recheck that "Spouses can also receive 100% of the dead spouse's benefits." I think it is 50-75%. I will get back to you on that as soon as I find out about what survivor benefits I can obtain since he died.  

[Eaglewoman]

One of the guys I worked with his wife died, when he was 60 he drew on her benefits )surviving spouse).When he turned 62 he took his own benefits and then married the girl he was living with. He would have lost his wife benefits if he had gotten married before he turned 62.