put your outrage pants on

[cacophony]

because this one's a doozy.

Study: Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages.

There have been previous attempts to calculate the cost of divorce in America. But the sponsors of the new study, being released Tuesday, said theirs is the first to gauge the broader cost of "family fragmentation" -- both divorce and unwed childbearing.

The study was conducted by Georgia State University economist Ben Scafidi. His work was sponsored by four groups who consider themselves part of a nationwide "marriage movement" -- the New York-based Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest of Redmond, Washington, and the Georgia Family Council, an ally of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family.

"The study documents for the first time that divorce and unwed childbearing -- besides being bad for children -- are costing taxpayers a ton of money," said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values.

"We keep hearing this from state legislators, 'Explain to me why this is any of my business? Aren't these private matters?"' Blankenhorn said. "Take a look at these numbers and tell us if you still have any doubt."

Scafidi's calculations were based on the assumption that households headed by a single female have relatively high poverty rates, leading to higher spending on welfare, health care, criminal justice and education for those raised in the disadvantaged homes. The $112 billion estimate includes the cost of federal, state and local government programs, and lost tax revenue at all levels of government.

okay is it just me?? is it NO ONE'S BUSINESS whether someone raises a child single or married. assessing a tax burden is absolutely ridiculous. if they're going to start ascribing tax burdens to single mothers because they're "more likely" to be poor, then why don't we just go all the way and start making distinctions based on race. oooh who costs more, asians or blacks or puerto ricans? let's fund a study to find out! jesus christ, this kind of pseudo scientific method is designed to do nothing but accuse and demean the targeted demographic and it's little more than profiling. period. that's the obvious thing and i could rant all day about it. but i won't because there's something else i want to rant about.

the less obvious thing is that this study is funded by so-called "conservative" groups. conservative. con. ser. va. tive. but their stated goal is to try to get the government to spend taxpayer money on ridiculous programs encouraging people to marry and (presumably) abstain from sex out of wedlock.

conservatives: asking the government to inflate itself further by regulating your love life.

conservatives: once again looking to spend YOUR money in order advance a freedom-limiting agenda.

conservatives: dipping into the national pocketbook for a spendy solution to your life of sin and debauchery. you can't possibly love your children, single moms. shame on you, go take a government class to learn more about your failure.

what the hell is going on with conservatives and liberals? more and more the conservatives are pulling the classic "spend-o-crat" act and taking more and more out of our pockets to pay for government excess and loss of privacy. and middle class liberals like yours truly are screaming for tax relief and less government intrusion.

it's like we're living in bizarro world. except so few of us recognize it. like the "fiscal conservatives" who felt obligated to vote for bush in the last election because they can't see what's going on.

okay i'm done with my tirade. maybe it's just me. i don't know. i hate what's happening.

[BeautifulBurnout]

No it isn't just you. And I have to say that this is the best bit of "scientific research" I have come across in ages, with statements like this:

Scafidi's calculations were based on the assumption that households headed by a single female have relatively high poverty rates, leading to higher spending on welfare, health care, criminal justice and education for those raised in the disadvantaged homes. The $112 billion estimate includes the cost of federal, state and local government programs, and lost tax revenue at all levels of government.

Meh. Economists.

Reminds me of the old joke about the physicist, the chemist and the economist stranded on a desert island, when one day some canned food is washed up on the shore. The three of them try to work out how to open the cans.

The physicist suggests that if they were to use his glasses, he could position the can under the sun with the glass intensifying the sun's heat to melt a hole in the can. But the others point out that this would risk burning the contents of the can too.

The chemist suggests that they could leave the cans in sea water and wait for the metal to corrode. But the others point out that the sea water would render the contents of the can inedible.

The economist thinks about it for a while, then says: "Assume a can-opener..."

[Rog]

Heh! this is daily mail-esque, just look at the guy's sponsors for god's sake, he was never going to come to any other conclusion. 'Journalism' at its worst.

[Tiger]

Originally Posted by Rog

Heh! this is daily mail-esque, just look at the guy's sponsors for god's sake, he was never going to come to any other conclusion. 'Journalism' at its worst.

there was an interesting discussion on radio 4 about journalistic standards, think it may have been around the time of Bliar's 'feral beast' attack on the media.

anyway one the guests made an interesting point that a lot of the papers these days include articles written about various supposedly scientific studies, which in reality are paid for by clients who want the evidence looked at in such a way that the conclusion supports the the idea/product they want to promote. Dressing the idea up as "fact" supported by scientific evidence he argued was just trying to blind people by science. when in reality virtually all these studies would fail any critical assessment of the methods used. His biggest issue was the journalists who reported on such stories and just reported the study as scientific fact when they'd done no back-up research on it. He even went as far as to claim this lack of back-up research by the journalists he felt was in some cases deliberate because the articles in the main were along the same lines as the papers/editors/OWNERS poltical/social ideals.

This single parent study from the US is just the same bunk-um, without reading it in detail i would pretty much guarantee its full of sweeping generalisations which invalidate its findings.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Tiger

a lot of the papers these days include articles written about various supposedly scientific studies, which in reality are paid for by clients who want the evidence looked at in such a way that the conclusion supports the the idea/product they want to promote.

such as every "smoking doesn't cause cancer" study ever funded. follow the trail and it leads you back to big tobacco.

you can't trust studies these days. you can manipulate the data to prove anything. all studies can really do anymore is tell you a hell of a lot about the person sponsoring it.

[den]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

The economist thinks about it for a while, then says: "Assume a can-opener..."

Yes! I love that joke. One of my economics teachers told that one. It seems really apt when you're looking at graphs depicting the marginal benefit of having a million right-footed shoes and zero left-footed shoes.

So many of these economic cost studies are crap. It really is making a bunch of assumptions and slapping an arbitrary number on them to make a shocking headline that doesn't tell the whole story.

Year after year, this one consulting company (Challenger, Gray, and Christmas) puts out the same bullshit report that "Discussing the Super Bowl at work will cause $6 billion in lost productivity" (or something similar about another event.) But all they do is make wild assumptions that everyone at work spend X amount of time talking about the Super Bowl and then relate that proportion to the GDP. But when the GDP is $13 trillion, of course you'll get some ridiculous number. One hour of 'productivity' across the country would therefore equate to $6 billion dollars. Of course, this is assuming that the one hour spent talking about the Super Bowl would be spent in addition to the normal small talk and 'wasted' time everyday. Or not talked about on a lunch hour. Or a break. Or any other number of convenient assumptions. Every single media outlet will pick up this story and run it. Free publicity for the 'pull random numbers out of our ass' consulting firm.