High rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion each year, making marriage enrichment a legitimate policy concern, a first-of-its-kind study sponsored by four public policy and research groups said.
“These costs are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation,” Ben Scafidi, the lead researcher and an economics professor at Georgia College and State University, said.
“Prior research shows that marriage lifts single mothers out of poverty and therefore reduces the need for costly social benefits,” Scafidi added. “This new report shows that public concern about the decline of marriage need not be based only on ‘moral’ concerns, but that reducing high taxpayer costs of family fragmentation is a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators, as well as community reformers and faith communities.”
The study, released in mid-April, was sponsored by the Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, the Georgia Family Council and Families Northwest.
Waylan Owens, associate professor of pastoral ministry at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, told Baptist Press that churches must accept some responsibility for the results revealed in the study.
“Too often, we have chosen not to stand firmly on the full biblical message regarding marriage and our vows to God and to each other even within our own congregations, much less outwardly to society,” Owens said. “When we fail in this fundamental task, people in our churches and in our larger society, who depend upon a clear word from scripture, can fall prey to those who would soften the warnings of Jesus, believing in turn that divorce is benign and that unwed childbirth is of little consequence.”
In addition to the estimate that family fragmentation costs taxpayers nationwide more than $1 trillion each decade, the report offered estimates for the costs of marriage breakdowns and single parenting for each state. Of the taxpayer costs, researchers estimated $70.1 billion are at the federal level, $33.3 billion are at the state level and $8.5 billion are at the local level.
Researchers noted that each year the nation supports single-parent families with about $28 billion in Medicaid and $35 billion in other welfare programs. An additional $9 billion is spent on child-welfare costs, and an estimated $23 billion is lost in tax revenues because single-parent families often struggle with joblessness, the report said. Researchers estimate $19 billion goes to the maintenance of courts, police, prisons and jails that often are frequented by members of single-parent homes who statistically tend to be more involved in criminal activity.