The marriage bonus disproportionately favors white single-wage-earner households

Evidence

However, even before the tax rolls were expanded in the postwar era, it was clear that the marriage bonus was likely to disproportionately benefit white couples. Black wives, like my mother, have always worked outside the home more than white wives, even after controlling for income. In fact, even as income rises, the labor gap between white and black wives widens along with it—meaning that among the highest-earning couples, more black wives work and more white wives do not. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 96

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘marriage penalty/bonus’ literature and to the concept of imputed income that appears in the next paragraphs — a single coherent tax-mechanism chain.