Many young, harried two-earner couples do this to eat out, he noted.

For a two-earner couple making $150,000 split evenly, Alterman claims a staggering marriage penalty of $7,700.

In a world of two-earner couples, these families are at a deep disadvantage, as evidenced by their low $13,500 average income.

It is particularly important for two-earner couples to study their benefit plans together to coordinate coverage and avoid duplication of benefits, if possible.

Hundreds of thousands of two-earner couples are holding jobs that might start at $15,000 or so and climb over the years to the mid-$20,000 level.

It would have fallen further were it not for a growing number of two-earner couples.

Congress dealt fairly with this issue by passing a bill in 2000 that would tax one-earner and two-earner married couples equally.

One family decides to be a two-earner couple; the wife takes a job and puts her children in daycare.

Everyone living in high-cost areas, not just two-earner couples, is adversely affected by it.

Meanwhile, overworked two-earner couples are madly subcontracting to other people much of what families used to do for themselves.