Divorce Costs Everyone

DIVORCE COSTS EVERYONE

High rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion each year. It is estimated that family fragmentation costs taxpayers more than $1 trillion each decade; about $70.1 billion is at the federal level, $33.3 billion at the state level and $8.5 billion at the local level. Each year the U.S. supports single-parent families with about $28 billion in Medicaid and $35 billion in other welfare costs. An additional $9 billion is spent on child-welfare, and $23 billion is lost in tax revenues because single-parent families often struggle with joblessness. Divorce also substantially accounts for much of cost that goes to the maintenance of courts, police, prisons and jails often frequented by members of single-parent homes who statistically tend to be more involved in criminal activity.

(Baptist Press 5/6/08)