Marriage in the US needs a new “Marshall Plan” to restore marriage, a leading US think-tank has said. 
The Heritage Foundation has issued a paper entitled “A Marshall Plan for Marriage: Rebuilding Our Shattered Homes,” [1] which sets out a range of policies designed to strengthen marriage admidst a range of challenges facing the institution.
It says that, given the fact that children have much better outcomes when raised in intact, married families, major efforts are needed to strengthen the institution.
It recommends four basic measures. They are: eliminating marriage penalties from US Government programmes; a pro-marriage awareness campaign; reform of divorce laws; and study, measure and reward success in marriage.
The paper says: “Married couples tend to be better off financially than their single or cohabitating counterparts. Policymakers should encourage such beneficial economic decisions by removing financial disincentives to marriage from tax and welfare policies.”
It also urges policy makers to encourage pro-marriage messaging in existing government programmes and other resources.
It says that using existing government initiatives and grants to promote strong marriages and initiating media campaigns that encourage matrimony “can expand public awareness of marriage’s social and economic benefits”.
The paper also recommends rexamining and reforming divorce laws, starting at the state level.
It says: “The cost of divorce to taxpayers and communities is high. States should reform existing divorce laws to recognise and accommodate the many divorcing couples who are open to counseling and reconciliation efforts.”
Government should also recognise and affirm success in marriage. Successful marriages, the paper says, generate “significant cost savings to taxpayers”.
On this basis, it adds, “national leaders should find new ways to acknowledge success in marriage and recognise the power of civic leadership in publicly extolling the many benefits of marriage”..
The paper’s author, Senior Fellow Chuck Donovan, said that reversing the trends of almost four decades of decline in the institution of marriage would “not happen by accident”.
He said: “The nation needs to forge a fresh American consensus that rescuing marriage – a Marshall Plan to rebuild shattered American homes – is a matter of the highest national priority.”
The paper points to a series of recent studies showing that marriage in the US is increasingly losing cultural traction.
A study [2] published last year by the University of Virginia and the Institute of American Values, conducted by W Brad Wilcox, warned that marriage is in trouble among the US middle class.
And Census data published earlier this month shows that the economic slowdown has hurt marriage, especially in poorer areas. Four out of 10 children are now born outside of marriage.