TRENTON:  First-time research reveals staggering annual taxpayer costs for divorce and unwed childbearing.  This landmark scholarly study, entitled, “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Child-bearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States,” identifies national, state and local costs which account for more than one trillion in the last decade.  The study was released last Tuesday at the National Press Club, by four renowned public policy groups – Institute for American Values, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest, Georgia Family Council – and today the NJ Family Policy Council presents New Jersey results.

The cost to New Jersey taxpayers alone is more than $1 billion a year.  “This study documents that divorce and unwed childbearing – besides being bad for children – are also costing taxpayers a ton of money,” said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, speaking on the national impact.  Len Deo, President and founder of the NJ Family Policy Council, says “Even if we make a small improvement in the health of marriage in New Jersey it would result in a substantial savings to taxpayers.” “For example, a 10% reduction in rates of family fragmentation would save overburdened New Jersey taxpayers more than $1 million per year.
 
The costs outlined in this study “are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased child poverty – caused by family fragmentation,” said principal investigator Ben Scafidi, Ph.D., economics professor at Georgia College & State University.

“Prior, established research shows that marriage lifts single mothers out of poverty and therefore reduces the need for costly social benefits,” explained Scafidi.  “This new report shows that public concern about the decline of marriage need not be based on moral concerns alone, but that reducing high taxpayer costs of family fragmentation is a legitimate concern of government, policy makers and legislators, as well as community reformers and faith communities.”

“The report’s numbers represent an extremely cautious estimate, and have been vetted by a group of distinguished scholars and economists”, explains Toni Meyer, Senior Research Analyst for the NJ Family Policy Council.  “For example, one of the more modest research simulations utilized by research fellows at the Brookings Institute concludes that marriage would reduce poverty among single mothers substantially, by about 65%.  This study shows if marriage reduced the poverty of female-headed HH’s by even 60% that there would be a 31.5% reduction in total poverty in New Jersey.”    

“These numbers represent real people and real suffering,” says Len Deo, and both economic and human costs make family fragmentation a legitimate public concern.  “While we’ll never eliminate divorce and unwed child-bearing entirely, we can certainly be doing more to help marriage and families succeed. In light of the current fiscal challenge we find our state in, the NJFPC calls upon the governor and the NJ Legislature to create a non-partisan commission to study these results and formulate public policy solutions.

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