Left wing Brookings Institution.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2001/06/summer-childrenfamilies-horn
Marriage: A Social Good under Attack
Although some observers question the propriety of promoting marriage, countless studies demonstrate that children, on average, fare better in continuously married households than in any other family structure. Married adults, women as well as men, are happier, healthier, and wealthier than their unmarried counterparts. And communities with higher marriage rates evidence fewer social pathologies, including crime, educational failure, and poverty, than do those with lower marriage rates. Congress got it right when it said that one goal of welfare reform ought to be to promote marriage.
...
Second, when couples do get married, public policy frequently punishes them economically. The U.S. tax code, for example, contains a marriage penalty for high-earner, two-income couples. And the earned income tax credit penalizes lower-wage married couples. Moreover, welfare rules have frequently made it harder for married households than for single-parent households to get benefits. Although few couples sit down and calculate the possible economic effects of getting married, there is a sense, especially within low-income communities, that getting married means you lose "stuff." Couples may not be able to calculate exactly how much "stuff" they stand to lose, but they know marriage, at least financially, is a bad deal.
And they are right. According to calculations by Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute, a single mother working full-time at a minimum-wage job who marries a man working full-time at $8 an hour stands to lose $8,060 in cash and noncash welfare benefits. Under such circumstances, the wonder is not that few low-income couples marry, but that any do.
(So republicans oppose this? Where's the beef?)
