In the Q&A portion of his presentation for Sutherland Institute’s Congressional Series, Sen. Mitt Romney addressed sensitivities that legislation meant to provide financial support to families is “social engineering.”

This, of course, is a loaded term. It conjures up terrible images of historical practices that caused tremendous suffering, like involuntary sterilization of people considered “feebleminded” by various U.S. states. The use of such an accusation is too typical of our toxic communication culture.

The specific legislation discussed in the event is the Family Security Act 2.0. This bill would “provide a fully paid-for, monthly cash benefit for working families, amounting to $350 a month for each young child, and $250 a month for each school-aged child.” It intends to address the economic realities facing many American families from inflation, the pandemic response, and other challenges.

Information from the bill’s sponsors notes: “Marriage rates in the United States have fallen to all-time lows, and birth rates have dropped 20% since 2007. Yet, the average desired family size has remained stable for the last 40 years.” The proposed act intends to relieve some of the economic pressures on families that may make marriage and childbearing more difficult.

As Romney and Sutherland President Rick Larsen discussed, this type of legislation is actually a simple matter of adjusting incentives.

Current government policies have a perverse incentive effect on family formation. A recent analysis noted:

Put simply, the system discourages marriage. For example, two lower-income Americans might gain access to Obamacare subsidies by marrying—and also come out better at tax time thanks to various credits—but these effects are swamped by others. Those ACA subsidies could come at the cost of losing Medicaid as an even cheaper health-care option, for example, and the couple may also lose numerous other benefits such as food stamps. At the higher end of the income spectrum, the consequences are less dire—a lower percentage is lost out of higher lifetime spending but marriage is still penalized, this time more via higher taxes.

Family scholar W. Bradford Wilcox explains this concept of marriage penalties:

Such penalties arise when social welfare programs are means-tested and when eligibility for married couples is determined based on their joint income rather than their individual incomes. Today, many unmarried couples face losing critical federal supports and tax benefits if they choose to marry, which often makes cohabitation more financially feasible than marriage.

Wilcox gives some examples, including this one regarding health insurance:

[A] pregnant woman earning $21,000 per year cohabiting with a man earning $29,000 per year would normally be eligible for Medicaid/ Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage for her own care and the cost of childbirth in states such as Arizona and Ohio if she only reported her income and not the income of her significant other. However, if this very same pregnant woman married the father of her child, their combined income of $50,000 would make her ineligible for Medicaid/CHIP coverage for childbirth and associated perinatal care, which costs an average of $12,000. Thus, from a purely short-term financial standpoint, it would make less sense for her to marry than to cohabit and report only her individual income.

These examples illustrate an important insight for policymakers. Almost everything the government does will create incentives or disincentives. It is often not enough to suggest that the government not act. Instead, wise policy includes calculating the effects of what the government is already doing and determining whether what it is encouraging or discouraging – whether intentionally or not – is creating harm and whether it should be discontinued or replaced by a different approach.