More than 7 million married adults under age 65 in the United States have incomes below the austere federal poverty line—currently about $23,000 for a married couple with two children). Among parents living below the poverty line and caring for minor children, 43 percent are married (and not separated). There are more married parents with incomes below the poverty line than there are never-married ones, and more food-insecure adults live in households with children headed by married couples than in ones headed by just a man or woman.
Yet, listening to policy elites, it would be easy to get the impression that poverty and economic deprivation are ancient history for married Americans—a major problem during the Great Depression, but not during the Great Recession or the several decades of rising inequality that preceded it. As historian Stephanie Coontz has noted, today there is “a sort of attitude … magical thinking, that if we get you married, then you’ll be find and we don’t have to worry about anti-poverty programs … we don’t have to worry about child care.”Scholars, pundits and other policy elites need to end their magical thinking about marriage and acknowledge the widespread nature of marital poverty and economic hardship.This brief takes an initial step toward doing this by highlighting this neglected issue.
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