Today’s latest Q poll results are fascinating though perhaps not very surprising (pdf), Save Jerseyans:
Married voters back Romney 51 – 38 percent, while unmarried voters back President Obama 54 – 34 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Among married voters, Romney leads 54 – 35 percent among men and 49 – 42 percent among women. Among single voters, Obama leads 47 – 38 percent among men and 60 – 31 percent among women.
There are a myriad of possible cultural, sociological and economic issues to analyze coming out of this poll.
Not the least of which is the impact of the federal “marriage penalty.” It occurs when two married individuals file a joint return and, as a result, their combined taxable income exceeds their combined liability as single filers. For example, take man “A” and woman “B” who marry and hope to prosper together. Good luck! “A” earns $75k and “B” earns $25k. Their average, annual, taxable gross income is $50k. So if our fictional couple were allowed to file $50k as single individuals, they would pay a lower combined tax due to the progressive tax rate structure.
As it is, $75k + $25k = $100k. That’s a huge tax burden bump for married Americans. And it’s only going to get worse if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire.
“A” and “B” were better off on their own… from a strictly tax liability perspective. Academic studies have traditionally found that marriage increases your chance of an affluent life. That, and remaining childless.
Draw your own conclusions regarding what kind of country we might have if government continues to incentivize “lone wolf” syndrome (and subsidize silliness like contraceptives) at the expense of everything else that’s good, important and sacred about our civilization.
Yet another reason to support marriage equality!