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Gay News: Gay married public employees in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will be paid more than married heterosexuals.
Cambridge City Hall
Gay workers to get more than straight colleagues
11 July 2011
Currently, married straight couples, receive a range of benefits including immigration and family rights and health coverage for their partner.
However, for those couples in a same-sex marriage the value of the health coverage is considered taxable income.
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the US, the city of Cambridge will now pay a quarterly stipend of between $1,500 and $3,000, to offset the cost of the tax.
The stipend will be awarded to twenty-two workers, who have included their married same-sex partner on their health insurance. It is estimated that the move will cost the city $33,000 a year.
“This is all about equality,” Cambridge councillor Marjorie Decker told Associated Press. “This is a city that models what equality really means.”
However, Kris Mineau, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute called the initiative “a travesty of using taxpayer monies to circumvent a national policy.”
