As I devote my evening to caffeine and my policy paper on same-sex marriage, I wanted to note the ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court today to open the door to same-sex marriage. How might this impact your bottomline? A few things to conisider.
The pocket books of gay DINKS are affected in a number of ways:
- Higher premiums on health and car insurance;
- Lack of access to partner’s insurance benefits;
- Potential loss of inheritance in the event of their partner’s death;
- Benefits of filing taxes jointly;
- Social Security and Medicare benefits;
- Higher legal fees to ensure the establishment of a will and so forth, and much more.
The catch is, all unmarried DINKS are at risk of loosing such rights in the conservative push to project traditional family values. Virginia’s ‘same-sex’ marriage amendment currently on the ballot not only reinforces the ban that already exists according to VA law, but restricts all unmarried couples from any benefits.
In the case of James & I, we enjoyed health care benefits for James on my insurance after a year of living together. This not only reduced our monthly expenses and provided James with better coverage, but we it also enabled James to make the switch to full time grad school without considering a lapse in coverage. (Yes, the organization I work for is progressive enough to have equal access for insurance and other benefits for all couples that have lived together for a year or more.)
Food for thought for all DINKS out there in blogland.
Time for bed!
Miel
DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) Finance is a blog discussing personal finance for couples. While by no means financial experts, we own a variety of assets including real estate and stocks. We've both been up to our eyeballs in debt and have made tons of financial mistakes. However, we've both successfully retired that debt and we both do learn from our failings. We hope that our voice in this blog can help others in achieving their goals!
