FINANCIAL IMPACT OF SSM: Congressional Budget Office

...In some cases, recognizing same-sex marriages would increase outlays and revenues; in other cases, it would have the opposite effect. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that on net, those impacts would improve the budget's bottom line to a small extent: by less than $1 billion in each of the next 10 years (CBO's usual estimating period). That result assumes that same-sex marriages are legalized in all 50 states and recognized by the federal government.

The number of same-sex couples who would marry if they had the opportunity is unknown, but the 2000 census offers some insights. The census does not ask about sexual orientation, but it allows people living with a nonrelative to identify themselves as "partners" instead of "housemates/roommates." Almost 600,000 households (or 1.2 million people) identified themselves as same-sex partners in 2000, roughly half in male couples and half in female couples. They represented about 0.6 percent of the total adult population and almost 1 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 50.(2) By several common measures of stability--age, home ownership, and length of residence--those 600,000 same-sex couples resemble married couples more than they resemble other cohabiting households, so it seems reasonable to assume that many of them would marry if given the chance.(3) Some would not, of course; but other same-sex couples who did not live together, or who labeled themselves "roommates" rather than "partners" in the census, might choose to marry. The census also contained limited data about the income, earnings, and assets of those 600,000 couples--clues that CBO used to gauge budgetary impacts.

For the purposes of this analysis, CBO assumed that about 0.6 percent of adults would enter into same-sex marriages if they had the opportunity. (That proportion is equivalent to nearly 600,000 couples in 2000, with adjustment for subsequent population growth of about 1 percent a year.) CBO's estimates reflect significant uncertainty because predicting how many same-sex couples would marry is difficult and because data on their incomes, assets, and participation in federal benefit programs are sparse. ...

On balance, legalization of same-sex marriages would have only a small impact on federal tax revenues, CBO estimates. Revenues would be slightly higher: by less than $400 million a year from 2005 through 2010 and by $500 million to $700 million annually from 2011 through 2014. Those amounts represent less than 0.1 percent of total federal revenues.

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posted by Eve at 12:19 AM | Link |

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