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‘Til Death (Or Taxes) Us Do Part: Eliminating Marriage Penalties in the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit
By Josiah Leinbach, Hillsdale College 

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Marriage rates have fallen across the Western world for the past several decades, the United States being no exception. From 1970 to 2022, the marriage rate in the United States fell from 85.9 newly married individuals per 1,000 people age 15 and over to 34.4, a decrease of 60 percent.1 Various factors, such as the sexual revolution, lower religiosity, and increased educational attainment for women, have all contributed to the decline in some way, with scholars tending to emphasize one more than the others. However, there is an emerging consensus that, whatever the cause or causes, declining marriage rates pose a serious challenge to American society. Across time and culture, marriage has been shown to provide benefits to individuals and society. Married men are more economically productive and volunteer more than unmarried men. Married women report greater levels of overall happiness and satisfaction than unmarried women, single or cohabiting, and suffer lower rates of domestic abuse than cohabiting women. Children raised in married households are less likely to exhibit any number of social pathologies and are more likely to experience greater socioeconomic outcomes compared to children raised in unmarried environments. Declining marriage rates, then, have implications for almost every area of public policy

‘Til Death (Or Taxes) Us Do Part by Hoover Institution

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