In the comments in the last post, my libertarian-leaning friend Alan put in a plug for getting the government out of the marriage business-"No workplace discrimination against singles ever more." As a mature single, he's been on the short end of that stick all his life.
Here's an interesting Atlantic piece from earlier this year that itemizes the cost of being single. They even miss the tendency that Alan likes to note to stick the single folks with overtime to let the married folks have more time with their families; that might be a financial boon to the singles if they get time-and-a-half, but if they're merely given comp time when they might not need it, it's a pain in the butt for the put-upon single.
If you're looking at the individual as the key unit in society, Alan and other folks have a point. However, we're subsidizing marriage for a reason; kids do better with two parents than one, and getting people into marriage helps civilize guys. That's going to be a problem China will run into in the next few years as the guy surplus created from their one-child policy creates a caste of single guys locked out of the conventional mating market and getting into more trouble than their married peers.
How much is the positive externalities of marriage worth? Good question. Enough to at least give some benefits to marrieds. Yes, that does mean that singles get "screwed" as individuals, but society as a whole is better off. For most folks who eventually have kids, they will get the benefit down the line but be on the short end while single; the barren folks don't get the benefits and are shorted, but not everyone gets perfect fairness in life.
Eileen works with special-ed kids. They're getting more money spent on them per-capita than normal kids; some of the more problematic kids have a teacher's aide (paraeducator in modern ed-speak) dedicated to them, which makes them multiple times more expensive than a conventional classroom pupil who can have their teacher run herd over a couple dozen kids.
However, we want to take care of these kids and see if they can get to a point of being somewhat self-sufficient and do stuff as adults. That takes spending more money than hard equity would dictate, but should produce a better society in the long run.
Just as special-ed kids get more money spent on them than their less-challenged peers, married folks get more bennies than single folks. It's not "fair" but it makes for a better society.
Recent Comments