Legal and Financial:
Legislative Changes and Enforcement:
The mechanisms to dismantling singlism are a suite of policies and legislative and regulatory requirements, accompanied by media campaigns to raise awareness and change social behaviour, and funding watchdog programs that keep our governments and businesses honest.
Watch-dogs or penalties should be implemented to enforce equal tax and financial treatment regardless of marital status. U.S. Legislators—all of whom represent demographics comprising almost 50 percent single people—need to propose more progressive legislation, such as a flat tax, or if not a flat tax, then tax rates that are independent of marital status.
Loss of consortium and similar laws need to be rewritten in a more egalitarian manner. Because loss of consortium policies differ between states, the federal government may need to create an overarching policy. If the federal government were to acknowledge marital status discrimination writ large, many discriminatory state laws would be forced to change, including the loss of consortium laws.
Eliminate the Joint Tax Return:
The antiquated joint tax return needs to be eliminated. Lily Khang provided an out-of-the box idea for rethinking tax law: taxing marriage. She says, “An individual’s decision to marry, if it entails the support of another person, is a personal choice, just as is the decision to go on an expensive vacation every year, and that consumption ought to be taxed.”[i] Khang isn’t necessarily advocating for this policy, but rather she’s showing how radical rethinking of tax law can and should overturn the outdated tax paradigms that center couples.[ii]
Easy Access to Non-Spouse Beneficiaries:
Laws must be changed so that single people have the right to select a particular person to benefit from our retirement funds and other government-subsidized benefits, without complex bureaucratic workarounds.
In any instance where married U.S. military troops or other federal or state government employees are given specific spousal benefits, single people have the right to designate an important person to receive such benefits equally (or to receive corresponding recompense in cash or another useful form).
Uncouple Retirement, Savings, and Other Benefits from Marriage:
The U.S. government needs to overhaul its codes to eliminate all laws that tie retirement benefits to marital status in any way. Regarding the issue of spouses (usually women) who don’t work outside the home because they need or choose to raise children: The government should create a retirement support system for these workers. This entire effort would require a thorough evaluation of the demographics and economics of Social Security recipients. In the meantime, singles and allies have little recourse, other than to continue to speak to friends, family, and politicians about the little-known fact of Social Security discrimination.
The federal and state governments must amend tax laws to force the financial groups that manage retirement accounts to uncouple marital status from retirement savings. Although changing the laws governing individual saving policies (Social Security, retirement plans, tax law, etc.) would help make financial planning more fair toward single people, ultimately the federal government needs to create broad-reaching edicts that prohibit tying any laws, policies, or benefits to marital status in any way.
Government employees have the right to equal compensation for moving and education expenses, regardless of marital status. Government employees relocating within or outside of one’s home territory on behalf of the government have the right to designate a significant person to receive subsidized relocation benefits along with them, regardless of marital status.
Marital status must be separated from all disability laws and policies.
Allocate employment opportunities, benefits, and pay regardless of marital status
Job assignments need to be allocated according to employee job descriptions and skillsets, not romantic relationship status. Human resources departments need to be educated about singlism and ensure that single workers are comfortable reporting employers who assign job roles according to regressive views of romantic relationship status. All workplace benefits should be allocated equally, regardless of a worker’s romantic relationship or family status. For example, instead of offering parental leave, workplaces should offer the same amount of “life-event” leave for each employee. Instead of offering bereavement leave for, as is usually the case, a worker’s spouse and nuclear family (and that spouse’s nuclear family), the employer should allow a worker to choose which of their loved ones would qualify for bereavement leave, and/or the employer should offer a set number of bereavement hours per worker, regardless of who dies.
Federal and state governments need to prohibit any institution from providing benefits where marital or romantic relationship status is a factor. For example, Minnesota’s paid family leave includes “an individual who has a relationship with the applicant that creates an expectation and reliance that the applicant care for the individual, whether or not the applicant and the individual reside together.”[iii] This law acknowledges that caregiving may be required outside bio-legal relationships, and it should be the standard, not an exception.[iv]
Employers need to be aware of pay discrepancies related to marital status and examine their payrolls to attempt to correct them.
Social justice training about singlism and intersectionality
Social justice training should be standard across all industries, in order to alert employers and employees to how marital status discrimination intersects with salaries and benefits, especially for marginalized demographics such as people of color and LGBTQA people. These demographics, along with older people, disabled people, and people of lower socioeconomic status, cannot be treated fully equally until marital status discrimination is addressed and abolished.
Update Title IX to include relationship status
Specific language for romantic relationship status should be added to Title IX. This will educate employers about romantic relationship status and marital status discrimination (MSD) and require employee education about MSD in the same way that training is required for other kinds of discrimination.
[i] Kahng, Lily. “The Single Taxpayer In A Joint Return World.” Hastings Law Journal , Vol. 61, Seattle University School of Law, 2010, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1371902 (Accessed 20250529)
[ii] Kahng, Lily. “One Is the Loneliest Number: The Single Taxpayer in a Joint Return World.” Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 61, 01 April 2009, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1371902 (Accessed: 20250309)
[iii] Williamson, Molly Weston. “Fast Facts About Minnesota’s New Paid Leave Law.” Center for American Progress, www.americanprogress.org/article/fast-facts-about-minnesotas-new-paid-leave-law/ (Accessed 20250529)
[iv] “Fast Facts About Minnesota’s New Paid Leave Law.” Center for American Progress, 19 May 2023, www.americanprogress.org/article/fast-facts-about-minnesotas-new-paid-leave-law (Accessed: 20250309)
Singles Equality | Singles Bill of Rights 