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Economics & Business
Macy's Ad Supports Marriage Equality
Click on the picture to view the pdf.
Excluding same-sex couples and their families from marriage not only causes economic hardship for families, but also negatively impacts businesses.
Use the key resources below to learn more about how marriage discrimination negatively impacts businesses and the economy while also causing economic injustice for families.
FROM EVAN WOLFSON:
Taxing Our Patience
As the tax deadline approaches, Evan Wolfson discusses how marriage discrimination causes unfair taxes for families across the country and offers examples of such discrimination.
For Richer, For Poorer: Same-Sex Couples and the Freedom to Marry as a Civil Right
Evan Wolfson discusses the life-altering consequences of denying same-sex couples the economic safety net that comes with marriage.
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WHERE YOU CAN GO TO GET INVOLVED OR LEARN MORE:
The Williams Institute
The Institute supports legal scholarship, legal research, policy analysis, and education regarding legal issues that affect lesbian and gay people with numerous reports on the economic impact of ending discrimination in marriage.
Key Life Planning Topics from Lambda Legal
Lambda Legal has compiled a guide titled Key Life Planning Topics for gay and lesbian couples discussing how to deal with the inequalities created by exclusion from marriage, detailing such economic issues as mortgages, wills, retirement planning, estate taxes, healthcare, and childcare.
Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders' (GLAD) Marriage Info and Resources
GLAD discusses the complicated process of Navigating Income Taxes for Married Same-Sex Couples and how to deal with Taxes on Employment Benefits
for Same-Sex Spouses, each exemplifying the economic inequalities created by excluding same-sex couples from marriage.
Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) WorkPlace Project
HRC's WorkPlace Project contains reports on businesses' policies concerning benefits for gay and lesbian employees and their partners, and how ending discrimination in marriage is not just personal, but good for business.
Freedom to Marry's Tax Time Campaign
Learn about the economic challenges that face gay and lesbian couples around tax time from our 2007 Tax Time Campaign website.
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ECONOMIC LEGISLATIVE STATUS IN THE U.S.:
There are currently no federal protections or responsibilities for gay and lesbian couples in the U.S. As such, it is important to keep track of these developments on a state-by-state basis. For updates about news in the states, click on a state below.
Legal recognition of same-sex relationships by state
Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
The Human Rights Campaign lists each state's laws concerning marriage/relationship recognition.
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THE NUMBERS: POLLING & STATISTICS:
Excluding same-sex couples hurts families financially. Across the United States, more than 39% of same-sex couples aged 22-55 are raising children-as many as several million, experts estimate. Additionally, same-sex parents have almost $12,000 less in average household income than different-sex parents (pdf).
Corporations realize family recognition is good for business. As of August 2007, the Human Rights Campaign reported a majority (53%) of the Fortune 500 corporations "[offer] health benefits to employees' domestic partners, more than twice as many as in 2000 and more than a tenfold increase since 1995."
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PUBLICATIONS:
For Richer, For Poorer (pdf)
Marriage inequality affects all same-sex couples regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, or physical ability. As with most injustices, the effects of marriage discrimination fall particularly hard on those living on the margins: the poor, the less educated, immigrants, children, the elderly, the ill, and those otherwise most vulnerable.
Unequal Taxes on Equal Benefits: The Taxation of Domestic Partner Benefits
Public policy encourages employers to provide health insurance by exempting that form of compensation from taxation. As a result, married workers who get family health insurance benefits get a double benefit—they get health insurance coverage for their spouses and children and are not taxed on the value of that coverage. In sharp contrast, workers who have an unmarried domestic partner are doubly burdened: Their employers typically do not provide coverage for domestic partners; and even when partners are covered, the partner’s coverage is taxed as income to the employee. As a result, the taxation of domestic partner health care benefits sets up a two-tiered tax policy that costs many American families and their employers millions of dollars each year. This report estimates the financial impact of this extra tax on employees and employers.
The effect of marriage equality and domestic partnership on business and the economy (pdf)
This report discusses how employer policies that treat employees with same-sex partners or spouses equally would improve the health and well-being of their families, which results in gains for both the employee and his or her family as well as to the employer.
The Economics of Equal Marriage Fact Sheet (pdf)
NOW lists the specifics of how ending discrimination in marriage is a social justice issue.
Congressional budget report: A positive impact if same-sex marriages are recognized
Bottom line: Allowing same-sex couples to marry would be good for the economy, with a net impact on federal budget savings of almost $1 billion per year.
Marriage Makes Cents: How law & economics justifies same-sex marriage
Book Review of The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law by Ryan Nishimoto
Andrew Koppelman's book The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Lawpresents the legal and moral case for gay equality. This Book Review examines how law and economics removes the debate to a pragmatic theater, compelling recognition of same-sex marriage.
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NEWS:
Browse through news stories about the economic impact of marriage and why marriage matters to businesses.
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Evan Wolfson discusses the life-altering consequences of denying same-sex couples the economic safety net that comes with marriage.
Why the freedom to marry is a matter of economic justice
Marriage inequality affects all same-sex couples regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, or physical ability. As with most injustices, the effects of marriage discrimination fall particularly hard on those living on the margins: the poor, the less educated, immigrants, children, the elderly, the ill, and those otherwise most vulnerable.
HRC's WorkPlace Project contains reports on businesses' policies concerning benefits for gay and lesbian employees and their partners, and how ending discrimination in marriage is not just personal, but good for business.
This report discusses (pdf) how employer policies that treat employees with same-sex partners or spouses equally would improve the health and well-being of their families, which results in gains for both the employee and his or her family as well as to the employer.
