Is Divorce Costing Florida Too Much Money? – By Elena Sheppard (Fortune) / Nov 27 2019
Marriage is often viewed in terms of its social impacts, but two Republican Florida legislators are turning their attention to its economic implications. Citing public and private financial interests, state Sen. Dennis Baxley of Lady Lake and Rep. Clay Yarborough, who represents District 12, proposed a bill earlier this month to create a “Florida Guide to Healthy Marriages”—with the goal of making it required reading for all engaged couples in the state.
The bill, written by Baxley, calls for the state’s Department of Children and Families to form a Marriage Education Committee that will be responsible for creating the guide. Their hope is that the information will help curtail divorces.
“Marriage has spiritual, moral, and social implications. It also has economic impacts on taxpayers, particularly if it does not last,” said Yarborough, who proposed a similar bill last year. “Promoting healthy marriages and families serves a compelling public interest.”
The backbone of Baxley and Yarborough’s argument is a 2008 report written for the Institute for American Values that says Florida taxpayers spend $1.9 billion annually on family fragmentation, which the report defines as divorce and unwed childbearing. While that sum is hard to extrapolate as it comprises a combination of figures, the premise is that when divorce happens, people are more likely to need to use government services like Medicaid, food stamps, and home assistance. A 2012 report from the Christian college Regent University calculated a slightly lower figure, with the cost of family fragmentation coming in closer to $1.2 billion annually. Spending $1.2 billion would be just over 1% of the state’s 2019–20 budget.
The Institute for American Values report acknowledges that divorce has negative financial impacts on involved family members—the average cost for a divorce in the U.S. is $15,000.
“People often will spend a majority of whatever they have in savings—if they’re lucky enough to have savings—on divorce,” says Alice Blackwell, a Florida circuit court judge who has a robust history of presiding over divorce and domestic violence cases. “It really becomes devastatingly expensive to families.”
Continue to article: https://fortune.com/2019/11/27/cost-of-divorce-florida-guide-to-healthy-marriage/
