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Originally Posted by aceventura3
What is the unwed birth rate for those in poverty?
What was that rate before the "war on poverty"?
What do you think are the top 10 contributors to the trend of unwed births in low income areas?
How does the trend in unwed birth in low income areas compare to middle and upper class income areas? Why are the trend lines different?
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Do you actually have your analysis available, or is this just another one of those "I'm Ace and this is what seems plausible to me and so now you must argue with me about it as though it is fact" things?
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Example: Joe 22 years old, with a job paying $27,000 per year, and a girl friend, who is 18. He loves her, and he just got good news on two fronts. First he was offered a promotion to be a crew chief, it offers $1,100 dollars more per year. His girl friend tells him she is pregnant. He is on cloud nine, and says let's get married.
His girl friend already did some research and knows that she can get free prenatal care, free delivery, free post natal care, coverage for her child, food and diapers. Adding all that up over two years it comes to a value of let's say $12,000.
If they get married they are looking at his income of $28,100, or $100 over the cut-off. So, marriage will cost them $12,000.
You think they are not rational, I do.
They don't get married - his connection to his family is weakened. What may have been the beginnings of a wonderful family has been hurt by government policy. I say rather than these arbitrary cut-off and high "marginal tax" (or loss of benefit) situations, let's come up with a better solution.
I don't get it, why do you keep playing pretend with these real world issues?
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I can vouch for this situation because I am in a similar one. The reason I'm not married to my lady is that we don't think marriage necessary. It isn't for financial reasons, though if we did decide to get married, financial considerations might present an obstacle. It isn't our fault we live in a society intent on overemphasizing the importance of marriage by tying finances to marriage status.
I get good financial aid benefits for school and our family benefits from having one stellar credit rating and one poor credit rating. If we got married we'd get to suffer with one shitty credit rating, and we'd end up in more debt because I'd likely get considerably less college money.
As far as connections with families being weakened, I think you're overstating the power of a marriage license here. A father's (or mother's) connection to their family exists completely independently of whether or not they are in a legally recognized marriage with the other biological parent.
*edit: in any case, just because you can fathom a scenario where it may be beneficial with respect to a specific program for a couple to not marry, you still can't plausibly assume that this scenario is significantly prevalent among the beneficiaries of said program to warrant consideration.