Legal Question in Discrimination Law in Wisconsin

Discrimination of Singles

The company I work for has an employee benefit program that gives you a certain dollar amount every month to "buy" your health insurance, dental, etc. The dollar amount is not the same for everyone - you get less if you choose the single plan and more for the family plan.

For example I may get $100 to use for my single insurance plan but a co-worker may get $200 for herself, her husband and 1 child coverage. Her benefit package then is worth more than mine.

Is this legal?

Thank you.


Asked on 10/13/99, 8:40 am

2 Answers from Attorneys

Ken Koury Kenneth P. Koury, Esq.

Re: Discrimination of Singles

Yes, this is legal. Singles are not a protected class.

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Answered on 10/13/99, 6:11 pm

Re: Discrimination of Singles

In spite of what Atty Koury said, there are discrimination rules

in this context which protect those lowest on the financial

totem poles within companies.

Congress governs "qualified benefit plans" (this one

being a cafeteria plan, with employees selecting how to

spend their pretax dollars!). The IRS provides strict

rules to ensure fairness in these plans, for example,

to prevent the big wigs from taking all the benefits

for themselves and having less for the little guys

(called discrimination rules) but they most certainly

do allow this level of discrepency as an implementation

of public policy objectives. Almost every company gives

more to those who 'need' more from their cafeteria plans,

one way or another. Others do it by providing family

plans to all employees whether they have families or not,

which costs them more because of the families than because

of the singles.

Are you the same woman from Wisconson who spurned a

gentlemen's courtship, tattled on him to his boss, and

then wondered if she could make money by suing for

sexual harassment? If so, my label of gold-digger

now seems to have been verified; you could have married

that man and doubled your family benefit package even

if one of you quit!

Seriously, there's nothing wrong in the eyes of most Americans

with doing a little more for someone who has a family to support.

I once had a boss, a single person, as company president who made

some waves by doing the opposite: every employee got the same amount in

a cafeteria plan whether they had large families or none. He was a

maverick in his day. He felt like you, I guess. He lost the company

eventually.

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Answered on 10/13/99, 8:30 pm


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