Fifty years ago, policymakers worried that welfare benefits were encouraging too many out-of-wedlock births. Today, some conservatives are making almost the opposite argument: that government assistance programs are contributing to low birthrates by penalizing marriage.
“Congress should seize the opportunity to eliminate one of the biggest injustices in the federal income tax code: the marriage penalty,” wrote Jamie Bryan Hall, director of data analysis at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In a letter to a House committee on Oct.
Over the past several years, leaders have wrestled their hands over two demographic trends. Marriage rates in the United States have declined dramatically — they are the focus of recent books Two-Parent Privilege By economist Melissa Carney and get married By Brad Wilcox, National Marriage Project, University of Virginia. Meanwhile, fertility has fallen to record lows, prompting growing concern about demographic decline and giving rise to an emerging “pronatalist” movement that sees the birth rate as an existential threat.
But the conversation about this trend remains largely separate. Marriage researchers focus on relationship formation, family stability, and child outcomes. Pronatalists focus on the causes and consequences of delaying or omitting childbirth. Lately, though, more conservatives have argued that marriage penalties in the tax code link these two issues — and that fixing those penalties could help boost the population.
The argument has particular appeal on the right: fiscal conservatives generally favor reforming existing policies rather than creating costly new programs, while social conservatives see ending marriage penalties as support for both marriage and childbearing. But like past welfare debates, it raises empirical questions about whether practical benefits influence family formation decisions, as well as broader moral considerations about the role of government in shaping individual preferences.
Marriage math
The statistical case for the marriage and fertility connection seems relatively straightforward at first. Married women have a significantly higher birth rate Compared to unmarried women, and both groups have had fewer children in recent decades, married birth rates have declined much less. Therefore, marriage penalty critics argue that policies that discourage marriage — by pushing families above subsidy thresholds or into higher tax brackets — can indirectly suppress birth rates.
Take the Earned Income Tax Credit, designed to help low-income workers. When two working people get married, their combined income can push them over the eligibility limit or reduce their benefits. similar to Marriage penalties exist In other means-tested programs like Medicaid and housing assistance.
These penalties were not intentionally designed to disadvantage married couples, but arose from an effort to target benefits to the needy while treating similar families fairly. Still, as a result, “if the typical single mother marries a typical working man, they lose their means-tested government benefits,” Hall explained.
Some policies, such as the Child Tax Credit, avoid this problem by setting income thresholds for most married couples to keep their benefits. Food stamps take a different approach — treatment All families are the same Whether couples are married or just living together.
While research is mixed on how well people understand these various punishments, there is some evidence that they influence behavior. A American Household Survey from 2015 reported that 31 percent of Americans said they knew someone who was not married for welfare-related reasons. A recent study by the Sutherland Institute in Utah found that 10 percent of safety net program recipients Said he decided not to marry to avoid losing benefits. A 2022 analysis from The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates That, without the marriage penalty, 13.7 percent more low-income single mothers would marry each year, and 7.5 percent more would marry by age 35. The study suggests that these women usually marry, but the punishment may delay tying the knot.
Testing the theory
Some of the strongest evidence for the marriage-fertility link comes from European programs in the 1970s and 1980s. The study of Policy testing in Austria That involves cash payments between married couples Sweden Greater access to widow pensions revealed how government incentives can affect marriage rates and subsequent fertility patterns.
The subsidy has proven successful in getting couples who might otherwise postpone marriage or forget to formalize it. Importantly, these “stimulus” marriages were roughly as stable as unsubsidized marriages, a policy that was able to influence timing for already committed couples. As Lyman Stone, a conservative pronatalist demographer, do it“People just need a push to say ‘yes’ to the person they’re probably going to marry.”
The effect on fertility was subtle. Although marriages influenced by government subsidies had lower fertility rates than traditional, unsubsidized marriages, they still saw significantly higher birth rates than unmarried couples.
But these European examples stand in contrast to the American experience, where US programs have historically aimed to promote marriage Little is shown success. And even if policymakers can effectively encourage more marriages, the relationship between marriage and fertility is not universally straightforward. India has maintained an almost universal marriage rate, even as the fertility rate has declined rapidly. Dean Spears, director of the Population Wellbeing Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that India’s marriage age has also remained relatively stable, even as the birth rate has shrunk among women married before age 25.
Spears is much more skeptical that we can “nudge” people to marry and suggests that we may be entirely confounding cause and effect. In an interview with Vox, he likened it to exercise being mistakenly dismissed as a cause rather than a symptom of poor health. Both declining marriage and fertility rates may instead reflect deeper social and economic changes—from rising opportunity costs for mothers to changing beliefs about family life.
Alice Evans, a gender inequality scholar at King’s College London, studies how Economic independence and reduced stigma around being single Modern relationships have changed. Her research shows that people have become more selective about romantic partners, with some choosing to remain unattached if a compatible partner proves elusive.
Evans believes we need better research not only on how modern life — such as social media and video games — affects relationship formation, but also on how marriage and marriage-related policies affect decisions to have children.
Cost of renovation
Conservatives see marriage penalty reform as a viable way forward, even though there is no conclusive research showing it would significantly affect marriage rates, let alone fertility.
The proposal appeals in part because it can advance multiple goals at once. For those who already want to marry and have more children on cultural and religious grounds, imposing penalties offers a way to promote both. The fact that it seems less expensive than creating new programs like universal child care makes it doubly attractive.
However, the political challenges are still considerable. Conservative economist Robert Cherry, who has worked on marriage penalty proposals for two decades, told Vox that truly eliminating the penalties could cost $100 billion to $150 billion. More modest reforms to reduce but not completely eliminate marriage penalties could still cost $40 billion, he said.
Some progressive policy experts see a solution in dismantling the traditional family structure. Matt Bruenig, founder of the left-wing People’s Policy Project, argues that the technical solution is to tax everyone’s personal income rather than using household income. Although he supports the abolition of marriage penalties to keep things fair for everyone, he is skeptical that they play a major role in reducing the birth rate.
Perhaps more fundamentally, there has been little evidence of political will to address these penalties. When Republican lawmakers first considered proposals for the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), they explored eliminating head of household filing status, another benefit that carries significant penalties for married couples. But the possibility Screw some single moms Lawmakers have proven too reluctant to move forward with the idea.
The political landscape could change as lawmakers prepare to revisit the expiring TCJA next year. Donald Trump ran for president on raising the birth rate and has already promoted prominent pronatalists like Elon Musk to his new administration. His incoming vice president, JD Vance, has also put fertility rates high on the conservative agenda.
Achieving the birth effect in conservative politics could not only remove existing marriage penalties but also actively encourage marriage through new subsidies, because Hungary did. Any policy response must address not only the billion-dollar price tags, but also deeper questions about whether government should or even can attempt to govern such individual decisions in modern America.
