A new study by Fidelity suggests that married couples may not know each other as well as they think — 43% partners don’t even know how much their spouse makes.
The survey found that 4 out of 10 married people, regardless of whether they were men or women, can’t say which salary range their partner belongs. An additional 10% who tried to identify how much their parters made were off by at least $25,000.
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John Sweeney, a Fidelity retirement and investing expert, said, “We were surprised how many missed the mark.” Sweeney also explained that not knowing your household income makes it difficult to budget and plan for the future.
According to CNNMoney, the amount of married couples who don’t know how much their spouse makes is up 16% from 2013, when Fidelity last conducted the survey.
Fidelity offers only two explanations for why the numbers are growing. One is the rise of self-employment, project-based income and contracting work on the side, because spousal income may be too variable to pinpoint exactly how much they make. For the spouses who work for major corporations, salaries tied to stock performance may explain their partners’ inability to identify how much they actually make.
