Help America: Get Divorced!

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Moneybox Help America: Get Divorced! The coming boom in failed marriages and why it's exactly what the economy needs. By Matthew Yglesias Posted Tuesday, Jan 31, 2012, at 06:01 PM ET Money troubles are a huge strain on marriage, so you'd expect that divorce would surge after a massive recession and years-long period of weak growth. Yes, as far as we can tell, the national divorce rate has been falling throughout the Great Recession. There are lags in the federal government's data, but the feds say the United States fell from 3.6 divorces per 1,000 Americans in 2007 to 3.5 divorces per 1,000 in 2008 to 3.4 divorces per 1,000 Americans in 2009. What's more, there's reason to believe that this is no coincidence. The bad economy is actually keeping people's marriages together—divorce is expensive. Mike Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, ran the numbers on a state-by-state basis and found that if you compare 2005 to 2009, states with a higher increase in unemployment saw larger drops in divorce rates. There's at least some evidence that the mild economic recovery of 2011 has led to a divorce rebound, and if the unemployment rate continues to fall we can expect that trend to continue. Indeed, we should probably be expecting a temporary spike in divorce as several years of pent-up marital angst is unleashed in a single burst. Of course we should also see happier results. Young people will be excited to move out of their parents' houses, where they have been forced to stay during the slump. It also seems likely that recovery will lead more ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Why GOP Voters Are So Angry About Obama's Rejection of the Keystone Pipeline Is Polygamy Really Bad for Society? Yeah, It Kind of Is. How Can We Keep Corporations and Governments From Suppressing the Internet?	Advertisement
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