Marriage Calculator: Financial Consequences of Marriage Decisions

The “Marriage Calculator: Financial Consequences of Marriage Decisions” is maintained by the Urban Institute, a social and economic policy research center. This calculator allows users to calculate the total monthly income of a couple or individual, according to economic and demographic characteristics and living arrangements (i.e., living apart, cohabitating and married). The calculator analyzes tax and public assistance programs including: federal income taxes, state income taxes, payroll taxes, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamp Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), public or subsidized housing, Medicaid, and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

User Functionality Users can input demographic and economic characteristics of couples to calculate the total monthly income, including taxes and transfers, according to living arrangement (i.e., living apart, cohabitating and married). The output generates a table of the net monthly income and composition of the monthly income. It also compares the difference in income for the couple for each living arrangement.

Users can download the tables into Microsoft Excel. Users can demog raphic information by sex/gender and marital status/living arrangement. Data

Notes

In most cases, tax and transfer rules from 2003 are applied. Users can refer to the “Methodology and Assumptions” tab for more information regarding tax years to which the calculations apply. The calculator includes rules obtained from the following sources: federal income tax liability, state income tax liability, TANF, Medicaid/SCHIP, food stamps, WIC, public and subsidized housing, and Childcare and Development Fund (CCDF)-funded childcare subsidies.

Data are availab le on a state level.