Let's talk about some marital privilege and class signaling

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While some conservative Americans point to the decline of marriage and the traditional family as a reason for the country's moral ills, researchers are worried about the economic implications of a negative trend in nuptials.

The cause of their concern: A growing gap in marriage is helping to drive economic inequality in the U.S.

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Meanwhile, household income has grown 174 percent for the richest 1 percent of Americans in recent decades, but has only grown 16 percent for the poorest, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Researchers estimate that between one-fifth and two-fifths of the growth in family income inequality is due to a difference in marriage patterns between Americans of higher and lower socioeconomic status, determined by educational achievement. And projections show that the gap in marriage will continue to widen over time, according to a recent research compilation from Princeton University and The Brookings Institution.

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"The United States also shows striking racial and ethnic differences in marriage patterns, even after adjusting for differences in education," the Princeton-Brookings report says. "Compared to both white and Hispanic women, black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all and have higher rates of marital instability."

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Many studies additionally have shown that children raised by married, biological parents have better physical, cognitive and emotional outcomes on average than children raised in other arrangements.

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Marriage has immense economic benefits that the rich continue to reap but that the poor don't accumulate in a time when income inequality already is skyrocketing.

Married couples typically have higher incomes than single-parent households or cohabiting couples, a disparity that has only widened in the wake of the Great Recession. Married couples have more assets – often owning homes – are more likely to have access to checking and savings accounts, and are more likely to have health insurance.

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