Jul 12, 2026
For generations, getting married was seen as a defining milestone of the American dream.
But Gen Z isn’t so sure. A recent CNBC and SurveyMonkey American Dream Pulse survey found that only 37% of Gen Z respondents consider marriage a part of that dream. Instead, they were more likely to prioritize financial stability, owning a home and overall happiness.
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Twenty-five-year-old New York City DJ and photographer Isabel Crawford is one of them. She told CNBC she grew up expecting to follow a familiar path: go to college, build a career and eventually get married, just as her parents, grandparents and family friends had.
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But after moving to New York City, her outlook changed. Rather than seeing marriage as a life goal, Crawford said she’s chosen to boycott it altogether.
“I’ve experienced so much from the women in my life, and I just can’t really imagine a man ever comparing to that, or being able to offer me, truly, the endless love that my friends offer me,” she said.
Why are people waiting
It’s not hard to see why Gen Z’s priorities differ from those of previous generations. They’re entering adulthood at a time when home prices remain stubbornly high, mortgage rates have risen and the cost of simply getting started in life can feel overwhelming.
Those financial pressures don’t just influence when young adults get married — they’re reshaping how relationships begin in the first place. A BMO Real Financial Progress Index survey found that nearly half of Gen Z respondents said the cost of dating has made it harder to reach their financial goals. Clinical psychologist Sabrina Romanoff told CNBC that rising living costs are changing how people approach dating altogether.
“We’re seeing that there is this increased cost of living, and it’s lowering our dating frequency and how we’re seeing or perceiving dating,” Romanoff said. “We’re seeing people have fewer dinners out and there’s a lower tolerance for higher-risk meetups.”
Crawford says the emotional fulfillment comes from close friendships. As her career grows, she expects to enjoy greater financial freedom in her 30s without feeling the need to get married.
Those pressures are also changing the timeline many young adults once expected to follow. According to Pew Research, only 6% of Americans had never married by age 40 in 1980. By 2021, that share had more than quadrupled to 25%, highlighting how dramatically the path to adulthood has changed over the past four decades.
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The cost of waiting
There’s no tax break that’s worth marrying the wrong person. But if you’ve already found the right one and are simply waiting until your careers take off or your finances feel more secure before tying the knot, it may be worth considering the financial tradeoffs that come with delaying marriage.
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Marriage can unlock benefits that unmarried couples generally don’t have access to. Along with the ability to file taxes jointly and share employer-sponsored health insurance, eligible spouses may qualify for Social Security spousal benefits worth up to 50% of their partner’s full retirement benefit, depending on factors such as their age, work history and when they claim.
Not every financial benefit of marriage shows up on a tax return, but taxes remain one of the most visible ways tying the knot can affect a household’s finances.
Before 2017, tying the knot could sometimes leave couples with a bigger tax bill. That’s because combining two incomes occasionally pushed married couples into a higher tax bracket than they would have faced as single filers — known as the “marriage penalty.”
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the marriage penalty for many couples by expanding most tax brackets for couples filing jointly to roughly double those for single taxpayers. As a result, many married couples now receive what’s often called a “marriage bonus,” paying less in federal income taxes together than they would have if they remained unmarried. The main exceptions are some very high-income households and taxpayers in certain states.
Ultimately, marriage is one financial decision that shouldn’t be made for financial reasons alone. The tax breaks and long-term benefits can be meaningful, but they only matter if they’re attached to the right relationship. Maybe that’s why the American dream is evolving. For previous generations, marriage was often the foundation on which people built a life. For many Gen Z adults, building a life comes first and marriage, if it happens at all, comes later.
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Victoria Vesovski is a Toronto-based staff reporter at Moneywise covering personal finance, lifestyle and trending news. She holds degrees from the University of Toronto and New York University, and her work has appeared on platforms including Yahoo Finance, MSN Money and Apple News.
