For car insurance, health insurance, travel, and memberships.
What is the rationale for this discrimination?
Do we have more car accidents? Do we get sick more often? Do we take up too much room?
Are we insignificant or undesirable?
Why do we allow society to value marriage as the gold standard!
There are 104 million single people over the age of 18 in the U.S.
They are SINGLE- never married, divorced, or widowed. - and that number is expected to increase as people lose their partners to death, as the divorce rate rises, as more people decide not to marry, and as laws continue that prohibit classes of people from marrying.
Why aren’t single people speaking out and protesting the payment of a premium for their lifestyle?
The assumptions are old.
You shouldn’t have gotten a divorce.
You’re not good enough to have found a partner.
You don’t have as many expenses as a household.
You cost us more for stamps!
Absurd!!!
Where is our advocacy?
There are advocacy groups for elderly, disabled, people of color, gay, etc.
Yet single people are in ALL of these groups.
Remember:
We are a significant number of people.
We have power in numbers and money.
Don’t support any organization - that doesn’t support you.
We are equal.
We are important.
Speak out for -
One person -one place- one price!!!
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I believe the rational is that costs for various services have traditionally been assessed on a "per User" basis, and the "User" traditionally, again, identified as an income source. Thus a single working person and a traditional family with one wage earner would be considered equivalent as income units and the discrepancy in the rate of consumption adjusted by increasing the "Family" charge slightly to offset any real cost that might be associated with the additional usage of the greater number of individuals.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, one can point to the prevalence of two income families to suggest that this traditional approach should be reviewed, but on the other current statistics indicate that the actual value of the income of middle class families is actually declining, and when one factors in the expense of day care and schooling in the case of a family with children it is possible to make the case that the traditional habit is still valid, at least for families with children.
I would like to suggest that the inclination to see a single person as being discriminated against be moderated by consideration of the privilege that we as single people have participate in the fostering of the young and protection of the institutions we find to be important. People without children do benefit from the income generating opportunities premised on the needs of families, without having the burdens or responsibilities attached to rearing a family, so rather than being discriminated against we are actually privileged. The cost of this privilege is loneliness, and the remedy to the loneliness is the knowledge that we have used our resources to foster well being in the community as whole.
Having said all that, i suggest that the fair way to find one's way through these questions may be in the requirements of "family Memberships." Perhaps the requirement of the Family as containing a dependent partner or children should be considered, and the cost saving not extended to a childless couple with two incomes. This would of course raise the issue of intrusion into private matters. For my part, I am perfectly happy with the existing conventions.