A recent Gallup poll found that Americans who are married spend more than those who are single, divorced or widowed, across age groups.
The average spending of individuals who had never been married, especially Americans under the age of 50, was significantly less than the rest of the population.
According to the poll, married American couples spend an average of $102 a day, individuals in domestic partnerships roll out around $98, divorced Americans spend $74, people who are either single or who have never been married have a daily average of $67, while widowed Americans only spend $62.
Researchers only looked at respondents’ discretionary spending. Meaning, expenditures on household bills or major one-time purchases, such as cars or homes were not accounted for in the study.
Married couples have more to spend than any other marital group. Singles, on the other hand, earn less than the average American.
Pat Fagan, a senior fellow at the Family Research Center and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, says that married individuals have a higher income because they are more productive than other members of society.
“After men marry their productivity and their income increases. Research shows that it increases by 27 percent, controlling for all factors,” Fagan told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
He added, “The people who are the most productive and get unemployed the least are married men with three children or more” because they have “serious obligations and you see it reflected in their productivity and their work ethic.”
When asked whether gay marriage would increase the nation’s overall economic well-being, Fagan responded “We have not been collecting information long enough about gays to know.
Fagan argues that divorce alone has had a significant impact on the health of the US economy. He explained, that divorce has “reduced the growth rate of the economy by 1/6 every year for the last 20 years.”
Marriage, he says, “is the key factor for both income and savings of capital. The breakdown of marriage is the key factor in the loss of productivity and the decrease of growth rate in the economy.”
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