Tag Archives: Relationships

When You Subsidize A Behavior You Get More Of It

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The charts below are from PJ Media. They illustrate the destructive impact of ObamaCare on the family and marriage:

MarriedNoKidsAge60OcareGraph0913

MarriedVsCohabit60yoOcare0913

MarriedCouple93kDivorce2KidsOcare0913

When you subsidize a behavior, you get more of it. We have seen that with the impact the War on Poverty has had on the black family. Up until the poverty programs that were put in place in the 1960’s, ninety percent of black families had two parents living with their children.  In 2011 two-thirds of black families were single-parent families. We see the impact of this in the growth of gangs and gang violence. Marriage and the family are the foundation of a healthy society. The way ObamaCare is set up totally undermines that foundation.

The article at PJ Media concludes:

The couple’s annual unsubsidized premium while married is $11,547 (OFA’s vaunted “tax credits” disappear at $92,401 for married couples with two children). But if they divorce and shack up while giving custody of both children to the lower-earning spouse, their combined annual premiums, at $4,317, will be over $7,200 lower. That’s over $600 a month. As was the case in the previous example, the savings from divorce will gradually increase every year. Parents will be torn between doing what Western civilization has considered morally right for millennia and their children’s financial well-being as never before.

The train wreck that is ObamaCare needs to be stopped.

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Our Changing Culture

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The traditional family has always been considered the foundational building block of society. What does it mean when the traditional family is disappearing?

The Houston Chronicle reported on recently released statistics from the Pew Research Center which stated that the marriage rate in 2010 was 51 percent, compared with 72 percent in 1960.

The article posted the following chart:

The article further reported:

The 20-something demographic shows the steepest marriage rate declines, and this is also the generation that’s less likely to attend church regularly or identify with a specific religious tradition.

Pair that with earlier Census analysis by GetReligion showing that “Religious people are most likely to be married and unlikely to cohabitate while nonreligious people are as likely to be single as to be married,” and this might also be a factor contributing to the lowest marriage rates in recent history.

The article also stated that the marriage rate for 18 to 29-year-olds has declined to 20 percent–one third of what it was in 1960.

Quite frankly, I am not sure what this means for our culture and society. Marriage and the family are a vehicle for personal growth–ideally, family members learn to share and to care for each other. My fear is that less marriage will mean less sharing and more selfishness.

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