The cost of being gay: The average gay couple pays $41,196 - $467,562 more over a lifetime.

[yllus]

The numbers aren't exact by a long shot, but the statement about gays having to pay more and jump through more hurdles as a result of their sexual orientation seems to be roughly quantifiable. The full article is four pages, I've mirrored the executive summary below.

In other news, single people are still being screwed over. (But only in the rhetorical sense!)

The High Price of Being a Gay Couple

For years, we?ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number ? a couple?s lifetime cost of being gay.

Our goal was to create a hypothetical gay couple whose situation would be similar to a heterosexual couple?s. So we gave the couple two children and assumed that one partner would stay home for five years to take care of them. We also considered the taxes in the three states that have the highest estimated gay populations ? New York, California and Florida.

We gave our couple an income of $140,000, which is about the average income in those three states for unmarried same-sex partners who are college-educated, 30 to 40 years old and raising children under the age of 18.

Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple?s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

 

[boomerang]

So, is this another life's not fair post? They're fairly common here.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: boomerang
So, is this another life's not fair post? They're fairly common here.

Life isn't fair. And it certainly doesn't need all the help it's getting.

<== Single and (only figuratively) screwed.

 

[Triumph]

WIthout making any social commentary whatsoever, that number of $41k to $467k is quite a ridiculous estimate for an "average" gay couple. How can you have an estimate across that kind of range with any sort of confidence about your answers?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: yllus
The numbers aren't exact by a long shot, but the statement about gays having to pay more and jump through more hurdles as a result of their sexual orientation seems to be roughly quantifiable. The full article is four pages, I've mirrored the executive summary below.

In other news, single people are still being screwed over. (But only in the rhetorical sense!)

The High Price of Being a Gay Couple

For years, we?ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number ? a couple?s lifetime cost of being gay.

Our goal was to create a hypothetical gay couple whose situation would be similar to a heterosexual couple?s. So we gave the couple two children and assumed that one partner would stay home for five years to take care of them. We also considered the taxes in the three states that have the highest estimated gay populations ? New York, California and Florida.

We gave our couple an income of $140,000, which is about the average income in those three states for unmarried same-sex partners who are college-educated, 30 to 40 years old and raising children under the age of 18.

Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple?s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

Higher income tax if you're gay?

Any assertion about that needs to be taken with a grain of salt until it can be closely checked.

Ever heard of the marriage penalty?

For the longest time we had a 'marriage penalty', that is two married working people (like most families -not many moms stay at home these days, and if they do so it usually isn't for long) will pay more in income tax than two gay people who will both file as "single" (given they have equal amounts of income). Note that "married filing seperate' is the absolute worse way to file because it results in the highest tax.

Now we got rid of the marriage penalty a few years ago, so two married people pay the same as two "single" individuals for the same amount of taxable income.

However, if you look at Obama's tax proposal, the 'marriage penalty' will be returning in a big way.

In short, two working gay people who can file as "single' pay less income tax than a married couple making the same amount of income. Now if one of the gay couple takes 5 years off, they will pay more than a married couple doing the same. But is that temorary increase more than made by the many other years of coming out ahead by filing as "single", instead of "joint"?

One other pretty big benefit of not being married - the unemployed single gay person staying at home will qualify for many welfare type benefits simply because they show no income on their tax return and have to care for kids. Some married couples have divorced (or never got married in the first place) to take advantage of this situation.

Fern

 

[BladeVenom]

And how much more do they take from the system. Add up all the extra health care they need due to an unhealthy lifestyle. Also add in all the AIDS research that's done, because they were the primary cause of its spread in our country. How about extra policing costs, and jail expenses to protect rest stops and parks.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: yllus
The numbers aren't exact by a long shot, but the statement about gays having to pay more and jump through more hurdles as a result of their sexual orientation seems to be roughly quantifiable. The full article is four pages, I've mirrored the executive summary below.

In other news, single people are still being screwed over. (But only in the rhetorical sense!)

The High Price of Being a Gay Couple

For years, we?ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number ? a couple?s lifetime cost of being gay.

Our goal was to create a hypothetical gay couple whose situation would be similar to a heterosexual couple?s. So we gave the couple two children and assumed that one partner would stay home for five years to take care of them. We also considered the taxes in the three states that have the highest estimated gay populations ? New York, California and Florida.

We gave our couple an income of $140,000, which is about the average income in those three states for unmarried same-sex partners who are college-educated, 30 to 40 years old and raising children under the age of 18.

Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple?s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

Higher income tax if you're gay?

Any assertion about that needs to be taken with a grain of salt until it can be closely checked.

Ever heard of the marriage penalty?

For the longest time we had a 'marriage penalty', that is two married working people (like most families -not many moms stay at home these days, and if they do so it usually isn't for long) will pay more in income tax than two gay people who will both file as "single" (given they have equal amounts of income). Note that "married filing seperate' is the absolute worse way to file because it results in the highest tax.

Now we got rid of the marriage penalty a few years ago, so two married people pay the same as two "single" individuals for the same amount of taxable income.

However, if you look at Obama's tax proposal, the 'marriage penalty' will be returning in a big way.

In short, two working gay people who can file as "single' pay less income tax than a married couple making the same amount of income. Now if one of the gay couple takes 5 years off, they will pay more than a married couple doing the same. But is that temorary increase more than made by the many other years of coming out ahead by filing as "single", instead of "joint"?

One other pretty big benefit of not being married - the unemployed single gay person staying at home will qualify for many welfare type benefits simply because they show no income on their tax return and have to care for kids. Some married couples have divorced (or never got married in the first place) to take advantage of this situation.

Fern

RTFA. The Times acknowledges the "marriage penalty," and notes that it mitigates some but not all of the extra costs associated with being an unmarried homosexual couple.

 

[blackangst1]

This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
And how much more do they take from the system. Add up all the extra health care they need due to an unhealthy lifestyle. Also add in all the AIDS research that's done, because they were the primary cause of its spread in our country. How about extra policing costs, and jail expenses to protect rest stops and parks.

Wow, hate gays much? You were just toeing the line until you vaulted over it with that last sentence.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

I get your point, but unmarried straight partners can marry. Most gay people cannot, and when we can we are still denied the federal benefits of marriage (like Social Security).

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

Not really. The article discusses the financial penalties dealt to the theoretical homosexual couple that would otherwise be married if not for the legal impossibility of that status. Heterosexual couples face no such hurdle.

In any case, even if there was equality, highlighting the financial penalty for being married as opposed to not for any segment of the population, no matter how small a percentage, is not "inflammatory".

 

[TheSkinsFan]

Cliff notes: Gays pay more for insurance (auto and health), tax services, and sometimes federal taxes. It costs more to adopt a child, or have one by surrogate on insemination, than it does for a hetero couple to have one naturally (duh!). And last, many benefits, such as social security, cannot be shared between gay partners as they can be shared between hetero partners (ie. spousal benefits).
...

There are many aspects of this study that don't seem kosher; but, all in all, it was "interesting."

One section that I take exception to is the one dealing with IRAs:

You generally need to earn income to contribute to an Individual Retirement Account. But heterosexual married couples can contribute up to $5,000 annually to a spousal I.R.A. for a nonworking spouse. Stay-at-home gay partners, however, cannot make these contributions. So they end up with smaller retirement accounts.

In real life, that same $5000 could simply be invested in another type of portfolio/fund outside of the employer, with equal or greater returns than many IRAs -- the only real difference being pre-tax vs. post-tax contributions.

Another section is the one concerning childbearing. Many hetero couples also have to pay for adoptions, insemination, and surrogate solutions -- so "worst case" hetero couples have the same types of expenses. It's also a bit ridiculous to paint these differences in cost as anything other than completely expected and unavoidable given the biological limitations of gay childbearing (hence my "duh!" above).

Last, one item of very interesting note to me as a heterosexual married man is that the "best case gay couple" paid $112k less in Federal taxes over their lifetimes than the married hetero couple -- WHICH JUST GOES TO SHOW THAT THE FEDERAL "MARRIAGE PENALTY" NEEDS BE FUCKING STOPPED before Obama brings it back around in his proposed tax policies! Grrr...

...

That said, I fully support gay unions becoming 100% equal to hetero marriage in all things -- To include spousal benefits and penalties of every sort.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

I get your point, but unmarried straight partners can marry. Most gay people cannot, and when we can we are still denied the federal benefits of marriage (like Social Security).

Thats not the point of the article. The article is married vs unmarried couples. Unmarried straight couples dont have any advantages (in the scope of the article) than gay couples. So why target gay couples? (Other than the obvious answer of gay marriage being a popular topic now).

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

Not really. The article discusses the financial penalties dealt to the theoretical homosexual couple that would otherwise be married if not for the legal impossibility of that status. Heterosexual couples face no such hurdle.

In any case, even if there was equality, highlighting the financial penalty for being married as opposed to not for any segment of the population, no matter how small a percentage, is not "inflammatory".

It is when the target of the article is gay couples, and not any couple.

 

[JS80]

Now let's do one on college educated Asian couples in San Jose who have no kids and no home. I bet they get fucked real bad in taxes!

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Triumph
WIthout making any social commentary whatsoever, that number of $41k to $467k is quite a ridiculous estimate for an "average" gay couple. How can you have an estimate across that kind of range with any sort of confidence about your answers?

it depended on whats being covered.


basic coverage i'm assuming would cover aids patients and other std's which is a higher risk set then normal people, meaning a much higher gap between straight and gay plans on the low end, however on the high end they tend to equalize as more stuff is covered for each. Or at least thats what i got out of it.

 

[MikeMike]

who the hell claims a range like that is even a good statistic? there is over a 10 fold difference between the lowest and highest possibility.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

Not really. The article discusses the financial penalties dealt to the theoretical homosexual couple that would otherwise be married if not for the legal impossibility of that status. Heterosexual couples face no such hurdle.

In any case, even if there was equality, highlighting the financial penalty for being married as opposed to not for any segment of the population, no matter how small a percentage, is not "inflammatory".

It is when the target of the article is gay couples, and not any couple.

what aren't you getting here? the couples in question are those who would be married but cannot get married by law. If you think highlighting the impact of inequitable laws is inflammatory, so be it.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

Not really. The article discusses the financial penalties dealt to the theoretical homosexual couple that would otherwise be married if not for the legal impossibility of that status. Heterosexual couples face no such hurdle.

In any case, even if there was equality, highlighting the financial penalty for being married as opposed to not for any segment of the population, no matter how small a percentage, is not "inflammatory".

It is when the target of the article is gay couples, and not any couple.

Heterosexual oouples have the option to get married. Unmarried heterosexual couples are unmarried by choice. Most homosexual couples have no such choice.

Read that over again if you still don't understand why this article focuses on queer couples.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

Not really. The article discusses the financial penalties dealt to the theoretical homosexual couple that would otherwise be married if not for the legal impossibility of that status. Heterosexual couples face no such hurdle.

In any case, even if there was equality, highlighting the financial penalty for being married as opposed to not for any segment of the population, no matter how small a percentage, is not "inflammatory".

It is when the target of the article is gay couples, and not any couple.

Ah. So if I write an article about the lack of responsible government in Iran, I'm being inflammatory because I'm not targeting the lack of responsible government in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, North Korea, and most of the rest of the world. Interesting logic at work here.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
And how much more do they take from the system. Add up all the extra health care they need due to an unhealthy lifestyle. Also add in all the AIDS research that's done, because they were the primary cause of its spread in our country. How about extra policing costs, and jail expenses to protect rest stops and parks.

Wow, hate gays much? You were just toeing the line until you vaulted over it with that last sentence.

Agreed. Wow. So people lurk in the shadows until they get a chance to strike at gays?

 

[Fern]

I didn't see the cost of weddings factored into this estimate.

Nor did I see the cost of divorce attorney's etc. Given the incidence of divorce this is not a factor that s/b overlooked:

According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America:
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%

Link

Alimony should figure in here somewhere, but I suppose they'd just say it is not a (net) "cost" but a shifting of resouces between the two. Of course, the person paying the alimony sure as h3ll belives it is a cost of being married.

Fern

 

[BarrySotero]

Homosexuality is a huge disease vector (much worse than IV drug use) where homosexuals are vastly the victims of other homosexuals (nobody does more damage to homosexuals than other homosexuals). I have little sympathy for homosexuals and their behavior-added higher health costs/issues. I have some because homosexuals usually can't help themselves and innocent people often end up suffering diseases they help propagate - like the hemophiliacs who got poisoned from AIDS blood from homosexuals (who are now banned for life from donating blood by FDA - and rightly so). The CDC (very subject to Gay lobbies) says Homosexuals are most of the AIDS cases, 65% of syphilis cases, 10 % of hepatitis cases and are currently causing a huge epidemic of MRSA and VRE in the major cities. Doctors were warning in articles about new epidemics ready to hit the general population but homosexual groups put the hammer down on them"



"A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday.

The study estimated that 1 in 588 residents living within the Castro neighborhood 94114 ZIP code area is infected with that variant, which is resistant to six types of commonly used antibiotics. The risk of contracting this difficult-to-treat bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of the city's population, researchers found."

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/15/MNI5UE0L8.DTL

"A potentially deadly and highly drug-resistant strain of MRSA has developed that can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported yesterday. The bug, which is spreading rapidly among homosexual men in several major US cities, can cause boils as large as tennis balls, blood poisoning or a necrotising condition that eats away at the lungs.

"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, told the Telegraph. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention."

theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23067953-23289,00.html

The political pressure to ignore the realities of illness and disease present in homosexual population is very unwise. There is no justice and compassion in spreading disease to innocent people. If people drank water from the gutter and got sick the public sentiment would be "serves them right". The same should be true for anyone that puts their penis in a sewer. Homosexuals have created a huge health and health care crisis for society ( with help from media brainwashing and intimidation tactics). A reason there is a health care crisis is because politicians keep passing mandates to cover more and more people for more and more things. We dont need added coverage for people who get sick doing drugs, sodomy etc. Much money for research into children s diseases has dried up because its gone to AIDS and homosexuals. It's a very sad chapter in the decline of the country.

 

[StageLeft]

Gays are far less likely to have kids and kids are like a fvcking shotgun in the mouth to household finances compared to anything I presume (only going by OP quotes) mentioned in this article.

Our goal was to create a hypothetical gay couple whose situation would be similar to a heterosexual couple?s.

Poor premise.

Maybe this is why half the home remodel shows we watch on tv have a gay couple. They seem to have nothing else to spend it on!

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: blackangst1
This is an inflammatory article (intentionally). The proper topic should be "The High Price of Being an Unmarried Couple". The fact is, although the article may be true, it is also true for a much larger segment of society - straight unmarried partners. But to intentionally target a smaller section of society is definately inflammatory.

Anyway.

Not really. The article discusses the financial penalties dealt to the theoretical homosexual couple that would otherwise be married if not for the legal impossibility of that status. Heterosexual couples face no such hurdle.

In any case, even if there was equality, highlighting the financial penalty for being married as opposed to not for any segment of the population, no matter how small a percentage, is not "inflammatory".

It is when the target of the article is gay couples, and not any couple.

Heterosexual oouples have the option to get married. Unmarried heterosexual couples are unmarried by choice. Most homosexual couples have no such choice.

Read that over again if you still don't understand why this article focuses on queer couples.

/sigh

The article isnt how unmarried people are getting screwed. Its a comparison of married vs unmarried. It ISNT about how unfair it is gays cant marry. You could easily have written this article about a straight couple and it wouldnt have changed the core of the article AT ALL.