"Salary Comparison: Military Singles vs. Couples"  (Ask Dr. Salary)

One well-known salary comparison within the U.S. armed forces is how married soldiers are paid a higher annual salary than military singles. This salary comparison hasn’t gone unnoticed by military singles who are marrying strangers to get a higher salary, according to a recent report by LAWeekly.com. It’s called a “marriage contract” and it works like this: military singles seek strangers to marry, soldier marries stranger (i.e. contract wife), receives extra pay for being married and pays off contract wife with a portion of his extra pay.

According to LAWeekly.com, an unmarried private in the Army earns a monthly salary of about $1,350. But if he gets married, his salary increases to about $1,800. If he is deployed, our married soldier also receives a “Family Separation Allowance” of $250, or as it’s called in the service, “missing me” pay. Thanks to these dubious contract arrangements, married folks in the military definitely earn more than military singles, but what about in a “normal” salary comparison in the “real world?” Are you likely to earn a higher salary if you’re married?

How does your salary compare to your spouse’s? Do a salary comparison with our salary calculator.

Salary Ranges

As reported in the New York Times, two economists, Kate Antonovics and Robert Town of UC San Diego and the University of Minnesota, decided to do a salary comparison of salary ranges of married and unmarried men. Their data sample was 136 pairs of monozygotic (identical) twins who had answered a survey sent out by the Minnesota Twins Registry (not affiliated with the baseball team). Since twins have the same genetic background, upbringing and abilities, the theory was the twins should have similar salary ranges.

The economists found that 85 percent of both sets of twins were married, so that left 23 percent of twins, in which one was married and one was single, to survey data from. They studied hourly wages, time worked, age and educational level of the twins. They found that (controlling for education, age and other variables) the married men earned about 19 percent more than the unmarried men. If they focused only on wages, married men earned 26 percent more in salary.

Average Job Salaries based on Martial Status?

An article about U.S. married workers in the Washington Post seems to concur with the results of the economists’ study: “Among its many benefits, marriage raises the earnings of men and motivates them to work more hours." Of course, on the flip side, it could be said that married men can’t spend as many hours at the office as most single men because they have families that need to be attended to.

If the twin study is representative of the country, then it could be argued that married people need a larger annual salary, after all, they have expenses that singles most likely do not have, such as children. Still, should your annual salary be based on your performance or martial status? Author Steve Knock, in his book Marriage in Men's Lives, says: "Employers value marriage and reward it."

Marriage for Money

According to moneycentral.msn.com, in addition to salary comparison, there are other financial pluses to being hitched: “…marriage has many economic advantages, such as pooled income, shared health-insurance coverage, although more companies now also offer this benefit to unmarried couples, and Social Security survivor benefits. Even the marriage tax penalty has been eased in recent years.”

The big financial winners are usually married women. Statistically a woman will live longer than her spouse (i.e. the poor guy that she drove to the grave), so she will get to choose between her federal retirement benefits, or her deceased spouse’s, whichever is greater. It’s sort of like winning two lotteries and getting to choose which one you want; meanwhile, dear hubby is pushing up daisies.

Salary Comparison and Solutions

Of course there are more expenses for married couples; especially if they choose to have children (a/k/a the “blessing” that could wipe you out). Also, there is the liability issue. Say your spouse gets sued; then your assets could also be at risk. And if your spouse has bad credit, that affects your credit report as well. Keep in mind when you marry your spouse you may also be marrying their debt as well (in some states), especially if post-marriage payments come out of a joint account.

Faced with all these potential landmines on both sides, the wisest course of action would be to stay single, wear a ring, tell employers that you are married (in order to achieve company-wide respect and a large annual salary), shack up with your beloved until old age, and then get married (for federal retirement benefits) right before you go to glory, or ship out to Iraq, whichever comes first.