Marriage?? Young Americans Aren't Even Shacking Up
You’ve probably heard that marriage among young adults has been on the decline, but a new Gallup poll finds that the percentage of 18-to-29-year-olds living with a partner has flatlined in recent years.
“This means that not only are fewer young adults married, but also that fewer are in committed relationships,” Gallup’s Lydia Saad wrote Monday. “As a result, the percentage of young adults who report being single and not living with someone has risen dramatically in the past decade.”
Related: The Bad News About All the Singles in America
That percentage has risen from 52 percent in 2004 to 64 percent last year, Gallup says. The data doesn’t necessarily mean young adults are avoiding relationships entirely. Young people are just less likely to make a serious commitment associated with moving in together.
The trend hasn’t carried through to Americans in their 30s, who are only a bit more likely to be single than they were a decade ago. Marriage among people in this age group has also declined in popularity, but the percentage of 30-somethings living with a partner has jumped from 7 percent to 13 percent.
The new data suggests that, if young people don’t feel ready for marriage, they may not feel up for long-term commitment yet, either. (In some cases, that may be because they’re still living with their parents.) “This doesn't necessarily mean young adults are staying out of relationships, just that they are less likely to be making the more serious commitment associated with moving in together — whether in marriage or not,” Saad wrote.
The societal question, she said, is whether those single 20-somethings stay that way into their 30s. A Gallup poll from 2013 suggests that young adults may not be avoiding marriage altogether, but are just pushing it back. In that survey, 56 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 said they were unmarried but did want to tie the knot at some point. Only 9 percent in the same age group said they were unmarried and wanted to stay that way. The most common reasons people listed for not being married yet included having not found the right person, being too young or not ready to get married and money concerns.
In other words, they might someday say “I do,” but for now they definitely don’t.
Increasing Number of Americans Delay Medical Care Due to Cost: Gallup
From Gallup: “A record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19% a year ago and the highest in Gallup's trend. Another 8% said they or a family member put off treatment for a less serious condition, bringing the total percentage of households delaying care due to costs to 33%, tying the high from 2014.”
Number of the Day: $213 Million
That’s how much the private debt collection program at the IRS collected in the 2019 fiscal year. In the black for the second year in a row, the program cleared nearly $148 million after commissions and administrative costs.
The controversial program, which empowers private firms to go after delinquent taxpayers, began in 2004 and ran for five years before the IRS ended it following a review. It was restarted in 2015 and ran at a loss for the next two years.
Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who played a central role in establishing the program, said Monday that the net proceeds are currently being used to hire 200 special compliance personnel at the IRS.
US Deficit Up 12% to $342 Billion for First Two Months of Fiscal 2020: CBO
The federal budget deficit for October and November was $342 billion, up $36 billion or 12% from the same period last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday. Revenues were up 3% while outlays rose by 6%, CBO said.
Hospitals Sue to Protect Secret Prices
As expected, groups representing hospitals sued the Trump administration Wednesday to stop a new regulation would require them to make public the prices for services they negotiate with insurers. Claiming the rule “is unlawful, several times over,” the industry groups, which include the American Hospital Association, say the rule violates their First Amendment rights, among other issues.
"The burden of compliance with the rule is enormous, and way out of line with any projected benefits associated with the rule," the suit says. In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said that hospitals “should be ashamed that they aren’t willing to provide American patients the cost of a service before they purchase it.”
See the lawsuit here, or read more at The New York Times.
A Decline in Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment
Between December 2017 and July 2019, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) fell by 1.9 million, or 2.6%. The Kaiser Family Foundation provided an analysis of that drop Monday, saying that while some of it was likely caused by enrollees finding jobs that offer private insurance, a significant portion is related to enrollees losing health insurance of any kind. “Experiences in some states suggest that some eligible people may be losing coverage due to barriers maintaining coverage associated with renewal processes and periodic eligibility checks,” Kaiser said.
