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Dr. Lauren Jones, OSU, Assistant Professor of Human Sciences
Title: The Affordable Care Act, marriage penalties and marital status
Abstract:
Policies that decouple benefits from marriage are said to be marriage neutral, and create equal access to the economic, social and health advantages of marriage, as well as the freedom for all people to opt out if they choose. In the United States, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided publicly funded and subsidized health insurance to millions of Americans. However, because of program eligibility and generosity rules – which vary nonlinearly with family size – the ACA is not marriage neutral. Depending on a couple’s income level, income distribution across partners, family size, state of residence, and age, ACA insurance benefits may grow or shrink if the couple chooses to marry, creating so-called marriage penalties. In this study, we explore marriage penalties imposed by the ACA by simulating marriage subsidies and penalties for various couple types. Then, using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), we explore whether the ACA marriage penalties causally affect marriage decisions. We find that a 1,000 USD increase marriage penalty reduces marriage rates among couples by about 2 percentage points, or by about 3 percent. We estimate larger effects among less educated couples, and when we include singles (whom we match with potential partners using a simulated marriage market). Our results suggest that one flaw of the ACA is that it does not achieve marriage neutrality in its benefit structure.
