Editing Cohabitation (section)

===Financial effects===

In the United States, married couples that submit a combined tax return may face a [[marriage penalty]], where tax credits for low-income single earners are not applied to the combined income.
In October 1998, Senate GOP leader [[Trent Lott]] decided to pull a bill to abolish "the [[marriage penalty]], which in the tax code reflects the fact that married couples who both work for wages frequently pay more in taxes than if they earned the same amount of income but weren't married. And the more equal the incomes of the couple, the steeper the marriage tax penalty."<ref name="americanvalues.org">{{cite news |author=Wade Horn |date=October 20, 1998 |work=The Washington Times |via=Institute for American Values |url=http://www.americanvalues.org/html/mp8.html |title=Government Punishes Marriage, Pushes Cohabitation |access-date=20 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110803200857/http://www.americanvalues.org/html/mp8.html |archive-date=3 August 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[earned income tax credit]] (EITC) is cash welfare for low-income workers, but the problem is the EITC is not for married couples because they have to combine their wages, which again leads to "the marriage penalty". If couples do not get married then their wages do not have to combine and the EITC in a way is "paying for" low-income couples not to marry. Opponents of cohabitation believe that some cohabiting couples choose not to marry because they would suffer a tax penalty.<ref name="americanvalues.org"/>

Despite the perceived disincentive to marry that the EITC provides, cohabiting couples suffer many financial losses as their unions are not recognized with the same legal and financial benefits as those who are legally married. These financial penalties can include the costs of separate insurance policies and the costs of setting up legal protections similar to those that are automatically granted by the state upon marriage.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Why Marriage Makes Financial Sense |website=Investopedia |url=https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0412/why-marriage-makes-financial-sense.aspx |access-date=2022-08-07 |language=en}}</ref>