Have you ever gone on a cruise? If you’re married, you easily book a double cabin for a reasonable rate, often including bunk beds or a separate room for the kiddos. If you’re single, like me, it’s a separate story. We’re usually charged a “single supplement.” This means we have to tack on a few hundred bucks – sometimes as much as $1,000 – because we are single and don’t have a roommate. This happens even on singles cruises! If you get your own room, you often have to pay a lot more money. Granted, you get your own room, but you’re still taking up the same space! If you bunk with a roommate, you get a better deal. I usually choose this option because there is also the expense of the flight, etc. You get it! Singles supplements are, frankly, a pain in the ass and in the wallet! Ok, fine, you’re sitting here, reading this, and thinking – “Waaa! Waaa! Poor Single Sassy! She has to pay extra for her vacations so she can have a quiet, peaceful room with her own bathroom! Waaa!”

But I’m just letting you know what it is like for those of us who are single. I almost lost out on buying my first condo because I was a single woman. Yep. I lost out on several bids because I was a one-income person buying my place. I only ended up with my place because the divorcing couple whose bid was originally accepted couldn’t make their mortgage work. And my conscientious efforts to get my finances in order ended up making me the better candidate – but I believe my marital status was an obstacle. That was just the warm up. It gets a lot worse. Did you know that in addition to having to pay almost double for my vacations, I also pay thousands of dollars more in taxes than my married friends? Yep, that single supplement also applies to my US Income Taxes, which, if I want to privilege to live and work in this country (and trust me, I do!!), then I have to shell out more money than my married counterparts. In a recent report by Onely.org, published in The Atlantic magazine, shares some of the following highlights

The U.S. government regularly and routinely discriminates against fifty percent of our population: single people. Our federal code alone contains over 1,000 laws where marital status is a factor, and in most cases single people lose out. Some of the most egregious examples of Marital Status Discrimination occur in Income Tax, IRAs, and Social Security laws, which all largely favor married people. According to Onely’s calculations, a single person earning $80,000/year could easily spend a million dollars more than his or her married peer over the course of a lifetime, based on only a few of the most discriminatory laws. Listen, I’m 38 years old and I’ve been working for non-for-profits the majority of my career. Needless to say, I put in many hours and have worked very hard to move up the ranks to receive a livable wage. Trust me when I say it took a long time to get there! And to think that I may spend $1 million dollars more than my married friends on taxes is ludicrous!

Luckily, I am not standing alone today. I’m joining an effort with dozens of other bloggers who are posting about this very same topic on this very same day. Why today? Because it is April 15th – Tax Day – and we chose this day as a symbolic reminder that income taxes are one of the many ways that singles don’t get the same benefits as marrieds. If you’re single, you get it. If you’re married, you get it because you were once single. I want to wait to get married until I meet the right person. I don’t want to get married so I’ll save money on my taxes. Just trying to get my voice heard – along with my fellow bloggers – today.