Latest Civil Marriage Laws Map

With the decision today from a Montana judge, marriage licenses are now being issued in all the states within the jurisdictions of the 9th, 10th, and 4th Federal circuit courts and these appellate courts' rulings striking down same-sex marriage bans.  Same-sex couples can now marry in 35 of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

There's still LOTS going on:

• State officials in South Carolina, Kansas, and Montana continue to try to fight marriage legalization even as some counties in these states are issuing licenses.  In Kansas the legal situation is chaotic with the state Supreme Court allowing marriages to go forward in some counties but not clearly stating that marriage licenses must be issued statewide.
• In the 6th Circuit, a 2-1 split decision upheld marriage bans in MI, OH, KY, and TN.  This split has now been appealed to the US Supreme Court.  Based on the 6th Circuit's decision -and in spite of prior public statements by Michigan's Republican governor that the state was issuing legal marriage licenses- Michigan's Republican Attorney General is now claiming that 300 or so same-sex marriages that occurred there before a stay never legally existed.  This is a lawsuit in the making for sure.
• A Federal judge in Puerto Rico has also upheld that island territory's marriage ban and so that case will now head to the 1st Circuit where every state has same-sex marriage including Massachusetts, the first state to adopt same-sex marriage.
• Court cases also continue in the 8th, 5th, and 11th Circuits.

ACA Open Enrollment Starts

Open enrollment through the Affordable Care Act starts tomorrow (November 15, 2014) and runs through February 15, 2015.  Here is a map updated in October for which states are providing their own health insurance exchanges and which are relying on the Federal www.healthcare.gov.  For the initial 2013-2014 enrollment period, the state exchanges outperformed the Federal exchange generally with Kentucky's KYNect being the star of the show.

Election 2014: Marijuana Laws

Recreational Marijuana:  Alaska, the District of Columbia, and Oregon on November 4th became the latest US jurisdictions to legalize recreational marijuana.  The vote in DC, however, must be approved by Congress so it may not go through.

Medical Marijuana:  The US territory of Guam also approved medical marijuana.  The majority of Florida voters did vote to approve medical marijuana in the Sunshine State, but the vote narrowly missed the 60% of votes cast needed to approve medical marijuana in Florida.

Updated Medicaid Expansion Map

This map shows which states have taken up the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) opportunity to expand each state's Medicaid program to citizens earning 101-135% of the Federal Poverty Limit (FPL).  The majority of states and DC are now participating with the Federal government picking up the entire tab for the expansion for the first year or so.  Then the states will after a few years have to pay for 10% of the expansion and the Federal government will continue to pay 90% of the tab.

Several key points:

• If you are like me and live in a state whose governor and legislature has chosen not to expand Medicaid insurance, then you and your fellow citizens are paying taxes into the Federal government to support the expansion, but your state is not getting any of the direct benefits.

• By some estimates 8 million uninsured Americans were eligible for their states' Medicaid programs but were unaware or at least not enrolled.  The media attention and efforts to sign people up for insurance, however, may be providing the indirect benefit of getting more people to sign up for Medicaid who are eligible.

• The ACA was designed for all the states to expand Medicaid to the poorest uninsured.  People earning <101% of the FPL were already eligible for Medicaid.  Those earning >135% up to 400% of the FPL get a subsidy to help them pay for private insurance purchased through the health insurance exchanges.  Everyone must by law have insurance.  So in states that did not expand Medicaid, these poorest of the uninsured must by law purchase insurance but do not get Medicaid ...and they get no subsidy.  They are trapped in the "Medicaid donut hole" as some are calling it.

This series of maps shows the classification of the state's 159 counties along a continuum from urban to rural.  This classification was developed by the US Department of Agriculture (by a fellow named Beale originally) and now is standardized by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  It is based on urban population and commuting patterns for a county's workforce.  Thus, a rural county where a large percentage of the workforce commutes to a metro area would be classified as more urban than if its workers didn't access a more urban area regularly.

This map is a little rough.  I need to clean up some of the borders.  Here though is a map showing the Peach State's MSAs.  A Metropolitan Statistical Area is defined by urban population and workforce commuting.  

Georgia's AHECs

Most?  all?  states have AHECs (Area Health Education Centers).  This map shows Georgia's counties, health districts, and AHECs on one easy map.  

Georgia on My Mind

This next series of maps I'm starting to post today are ones I've made to help myself and colleagues who work in public health in Georgia.  This one shows Georgia's 159 counties.  Georgia has a boatload of counties; the second most of any state after Texas.  (Kentucky ranks 3rd by the way in the number of counties.)  Each county in Georgia has a health department which in turn is also part of 18 multi-county health districts.  

The Equality State of Wyoming, the first state to allow women to legally vote, on Friday became the 32nd state to legalize civil marriage for same sex couples.

Empty Homes in America's Cities

This map shows the percentages of vacant housing units in the 363 metros in the Lower 48 states.  It appears to highlight vacation homes.  Popular beach destinations such as Fort Myers (FL), Naples (FL), Panama Beach (FL), and Wilmington (NC) all show 25-50% of their housing units as vacation.  In one oceanside metro (Ocean City, NJ), 58% of housing units were recorded as vacant in April 2010.

And Marriages Are Back in Alaska

The US Supreme Court lifted the stay on marriages in Alaska today so it goes back to blue.

The Rapidly Changing Marriage Map

As expected, the various states in the 9th, 10th, and 4th appellate circuits are catching up this week to those courts' rulings striking down bans on same sex marriage:

• Civil marriage for same sex couples is now legal in North Carolina.  South Carolina continues to fight the ruling, but the law is fairly clear that South Carolina must also abide by the 4th circuit's ruling.  
• In the 10th circuit a Wyoming judge has said he will rule by Monday on whether to strike down Wyoming's ban.  I'm not quite sure what is going on in Kansas.
• In the 9th an Alaskan judge struck down that state's ban. Couples began marrying but the state was able to get a temporary stay.  So it has gone from blue back to pink.  And in Arizona a judge ruled today there to strike down that state's ban and marriages are starting there.  Plaintiffs in Montana are seeking the court to affirm the 9th's decision applies to Montana too.  

And while court watchers have been waiting eagerly for the ruling from the 6th, we are still waiting.

Longevity and Urban America?

This map is somewhat challenging to decipher.  It shows the percentage of the population who are 85 years of age or older for each of the lower 48 state's 363 metro areas.  The purple areas have in some cases nearly double the senior populations of the orange metros.  These purple areas have 2-4% of their population consisting of Americans who have lived 5-10 years longer than the average life expectancy of about 75.  Some areas popular with retirees like Florida's metro, Prescott (AZ), Santa Barbara (CA), and Asheville (NC) show up as purple.  So do wealthier areas in Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut where health care may be more accessible.  There is also a fair sprinkling of old Rust Belt and upper Plains metros where there has been a large out-migration of younger workers.  So, while intriguing to ponder whether residents of some cities live longer than their peers in other cities, this map has too many possible variables to show a clear pattern.

Urban Native America

For at least 15 millennia Native Americans made up all or the vast majorities of peoples living in the area that is now the United States.  Today all the metro areas in the eastern US and Hawaii have fewer than 5% of their populations who identify as Native American on the US Census.  In Oklahoma (the former Indian Territory), New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and South Dakota there are 9 metro areas where Native Americans make up 5% or more of the population.  In Flagstaff (AZ) and Farmington (NM) at least 1 in 4 residents are Native American.

Marriage Comes to Alaska

After a court ruling yesterday, civil marriage licenses are being issued to same-sex couples in Alaska today.  With Alaska there are now 30 states where same-sex couples can legally marry including now most of the West and 11 of the 13 original colonies.  Based on appellate decisions, 5 more states may have marriage soon.

Black Urban America

One of my former students once asked me which cities had the highest percentage of unmarried African-American professional men.  She was a young, unmarried African-American woman in graduate school and wanted to find a similar man.  I told her I didn't actually know.  Her guess was Atlanta or Chicago.

I still don't know the answer to my student's question, but this map shows the metro areas where African-Americans make up a larger percentage of the population.  In Alaska (not shown), Hawaii (not shown), much of the West, and in many of the urban areas of Appalachia, Black Americans make up fewer than 1 in 20 residents.  In fact, only in Las Vegas and Vallego-Fairfield (CA) do the percentages of African-Americans top 1 in 10 people.

From Louisiana to Maryland, however, Black residents constitute at least a quarter (1 in 4) of the population.  In only one metro (Albany, GA) Blacks are the majority.

Marriage Comes to North Carolina and Idaho!

It's 10pm Eastern.  I decided to post this map tonight as a kind of celebration.  This evening legal same sex civil marriage came to my home state of North Carolina.  I had long hoped but not necessarily believed this would happen in my lifetime.  I read tonight that marriage licenses were already being issued in Asheville.  Such great news!

I suspect that like women getting to vote and the racial and gender integration of schools in the 20th century, the effects of both same-sex and opposite-sex couples being able to legally marry (and divorce) will have effects both profound and almost unnoticeable.  The sky will not fall as some fear, but this huge and yet simple change will transform the lives of people like me...and you.  One can hide a lover; but not a spouse.  No more of this uncomfortableness of not knowing what to call a lesbian/gay friend's partner.  It will be a simple "spouse" or "wife" or "husband".  And that will take some getting used to for me...but already comes easier and with a smile to me.  I suspect soon it will be easier for most of us.  

Garth Brooks once said, he felt that one day his children would ask incredulously why gay people were ever banned from marrying in the first place.  I know that one day some wide-eyed college student will ask to interview me when I am older and ask about those terrible dark days of the past. How could that ever have been?

Sure.  A few people will still in time point to homosexuality as a sin, but I suspect many will interpret their Bibles differently in a generation the same way people do today over slavery, tattoos, pork, divorce, pre-marital sex, adultery, and the Biblical standard of women submitting to men.  I suppose if the good Christian people of Louisiana can see in their hearts to re-elect David Vitter for cheating on his wife Wendy with prostitutes he paid to have sex with him while he wore diapers, then maybe they won't mind if Ellen or Anderson Cooper get hitched for taxes and insurance and love and all that.  

It's a wonderful, warm night in Georgia as I scan the horizon for marriage coming down in time from those beautiful Appalachian Mountains to these pine forests.  And I pause in this moment of budding equality to also remember something my friend Kate once lamented:  that the radical gay agenda of free love and equality from the 1960s has over time matured into a very American and middle class dream.  Indeed, the radical gay agenda that gives some such heartburn has for many years been the dream to marry ...and have a stable job ...and serve our country in the military ...and go to church ...and to maybe even have kids...honestly, openly, and without fear of violence and hate.  And slowly it seems to me -but at lightening speed compared to the struggles our country has dealt with on gender, race, and religion- this American dream is blooming for us.  

And it truly is a dream for us all.  The struggles for women's rights continues to teach us that leadership and genius is not defined by genitals; that pink and pretty can fly or build or design an aircraft as well as blue and puppy dog tails.  The galaxy is bigger and better for having both Captain Janeways and Captain Kirks.

The same is true for the still on-going struggle for racial equality.  These struggles open our minds like an x-ray that we are all pretty much the same under these various hues of dermis.  We all love and cry and bleed and share a common humanity.  When we all have access to opportunity, our country is enriched for all by the incredible genius that hides among some of us regardless of our different skin colors and eye shapes and noses big or small; hooked, straight, or flat.

I once read an article by an opponent of gay rights who argued that while the women's and African American civil rights movements had brought something to all Americans, gay rights in his opinion were just a selfish affair without any lesson for us all.  I think he was wrong.  This movement has been about being a small, fearful group of Americans who are willing to be visible and out for the sake of dignity and family.  For all the labeling of homophobes under the banner of 'family values', gay rights has always been about enlarging our public and private circle of family; as if we were jointly making an America-sized Grinch's heart 2 sizes bigger.  I've heard so many times over the years people say they love their daughter or their nephew or liked that nice lesbian couple across the street, but they just didn't approve -mind you- of homosexuality.  But as always happens -isn't this so true?- love wins out.  From the OH Republican senator who endorses same sex marriage because he loves his son to the single mom who says she understands because her little family also doesn't fit the mold of the perfect family in all those ads, gay rights has won because individuals and advocacy groups have come out again and again -and again just for measure- to show that families come in many configurations but they all are powered by the same desire to cherish and protect the ones you love.  

And so, America's understanding of love and family has grown.  Lesbian and gay couples who have stood together -sometimes for decades- through violence, disease, derision (I hear those jokes too), and discrimination have held up a mirror to America's bridal industry and ultimately destructive focus on a single day's wedding ceremony to say "hey, marriage is the long years of standing up for each other and dealing with failures and successes...and all the responsibilities of marriage for decades before there will be any public benefits".  Without even a clear word to describe this other person in our lives, lesbian and gay Americans have been saying yes to the relationship long before there was even the dream of saying yes to the dress.  It's about hospital visitation and taxes and immigration and yes even divorce...and all the ups and downs of a real relationship beyond bouquets and layer cakes. And hopefully America has learned that marriage and family are about the long years of relationship and the love ...but it will be nice for gay folk to have some cake at last.

And that is a good thing.

Latest Civil Marriage Laws Map

The majority of Americans and the majority of American states now allow both opposite sex and same sex couples to legally wed.  Since this last Tuesday's decision by the US Supreme Court to not take up any of 7 appellate cases involving same sex marriage, a rush of new states now issue marriage licenses to same sex couples or are in the process of issuing:

• Colorado
• Indiana
• Nevada
• Oklahoma
• Utah
• Virginia
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

Appellate decisions overturning bans on same sex marriage should also apply to the following states which are awaiting hearings to approve marriage as a legal formality or dealing with resistance to the court decisions by state officials:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• Idaho
• Kansas
• Montana
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Wyoming

The 6th Circuit should issue its opinion any day for the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee which could potentially legalize marriage in those states also...or create a case that would put them at odds to the 30 some pro-marriage decisions and send the case back to the US Supreme Court.

Race and Ethnicity in America's Metropolitan Areas

This map shows the cities with the largest percentages of a particular race or ethnicity.  Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics all form majorities in one or more metro areas.  Asians, Native Americans/Alaska Natives, Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and multi-racial Americans are not the majority in any metro in 2010.

Marriage Map Showing Appellate Circuits

I've updated yesterday's marriage map to show the US Court of Appeals Circuits.  There are 11 multi-state circuits plus the 12th, the District of Columbia circuit.  Thus, the 10th circuit court ruling for UT should also apply to WY, CO, and KS.  Colorado is now blue because the CO Attorney General says his state will comply with the appellate court ruling and begin issuing licenses.  

Similarly, the 4th circuit's ruling overturning VA's ban should also apply to NC, SC, and WV.  

Rulings by the 6th circuit based out of Cincinnati and the 9th based out of San Francisco are expected soon.  Cases before the circuit courts in the 5th and 11th are progressing.

Yesterday the five states directly affected by yesterday's Supreme Court decision to not take up the 7 same-sex marriage cases began moving towards offering marriage licenses.  Colorado's Attorney General also announced his state will begin issuing licenses.  On the other hand South Carolina's Attorney General announced he will continue to fight for the ban in his state.  

America's Hispanic Majority Metros

Seventeen of America's 366 metro areas have populations whose majority are Hispanic.  All 17 of these metros are found in the American Southwest from central California to Texas.  Historically these 17 urban areas have been part first of Spain's New World colonial empire and later Mexico.

America's most Hispanic metro area is Laredo, TX, where 97% of the population are Hispanic.

New Marriage Map Based on US Supreme Court Actions Today

Today the US Supreme Court declined to hear 7 same-sex marriage cases which have worked their way up through lower and appellate Federal courts.  Each of these 7 cases ruled bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, but each case currently had a stay on allowing same-sex couples to get marriage licenses.

With the US Supreme Court declining to hear these 7 cases, the appellate decision stands, and the stays go away.  Thus, today same-sex marriage should be legal in VA, OK, UT, IN, and WI where appellate decisions have already been made regarding those states' bans.  Other states will also likely be affected since they are in the appellate court jurisdictions governed by these rulings (NC, SC, WV, KS, CO, and WY).  

Appellate courts that are expected to soon release their decisions soon that would affect:

6th Circuit:  KY, OH, TN, and MI

9th Circuit:  NV, ID, AZ, MT, and AK

With today's five new states, 51% of Americans live in states where same-sex couples will be able to legally wed.  If marriage equality spreads to the 6 other states (WY, KS, CO, NC, SC, and WV), 58% of Americans will live in a state where same-sex couples can marry.  

Note on the Sept. 10 map of ruling below:

There have now been two Federal court decisions in Louisiana:  one upheld the state's ban on same-sex marriage; the other ruled it unconstitutional.  Lower Federal rulings in the 5th (TX, LA and MS) and 11th (GA, AL, and FL) are still waiting to be reviewed by the appellate courts for those circuits.

America's Only Majority Black Metro

The majority of Black Americans live in urban areas, but African-Americans make up the majority of the population in only one metropolitan area:  Albany, GA.

Women Dominate American Metro Areas

Females make up the majority of Americans in part because women tend to outlive men.  This pattern holds true as well for most metro areas.  Indeed, females outnumber males in most metro areas.  There are, however, exceptions.  A number of metros in southern California and Utah have male majorities.  All the metro areas in Alaska and Hawaii are also majority male.  Some of the other male majority metros are college towns such as Blacksburg (VA), Columbia (MO), and Austin (TX).  Others such as Jacksonville (NC) and San Diego (CA) have large military bases.

Big Differences in Urban Americans' Ages

This intriguing map shows the median age in the United States' 366* metro areas.  Most metro areas have a median age somewhere in the 30s.  Eighteen metro areas, however, have populations whose median ages are under 30.  These include college towns like Ithaca (NY) and Athens (GA) as well as areas with large military bases such as Jacksonville (NC).  On the other end of the spectrum is the Punta Gorda metro area, a Florida retirement mecca where the median age is 55.8 years.  Another 71 metros -largely a mix of retirement/tourist areas and aging industrial towns- have median ages between 40-50 years.


*Some earlier maps show 366 metros but report there are only 365.  I miscounted.  There are 366.

Some Cities Are Just More City-Like

Some cities are...well...more city-like than others.  Population density is a big factor.  Out in Flagstaff, AZ, the metro area is big and relatively empty with only 7 people per square mile.  A couple of hundred miles west, however, is Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana where 2,652 people per square mile soak up that southern California sunshine.  I was frankly surprised.  I thought New York City would be America's most dense metro area, but it is now #2 behind LA.  Still, the eastern seaboard cities, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Tampa, south Florida, and the San Francisco Bay area still pack in the people to provide that yummy urban goodness.

Urban Heavyweights: The Metro Areas Outproducing for Their Populations

27 metro areas produce over half of the United States' GDP.  The largest is New York City both in terms of population and GDP production.  Similarly, Los Angeles ranks #2 in both population and GDP.  The same with Chicago at #3.  This general trend holds except for a number of metro areas whose GDP production outperforms cities with larger populations.  This table compares GDP rank with population size rank.

With its oil refineries, Houston is the first of the outperformers.  With a population ranking at 5th largest in the country, it ranks 4th in GDP production.  The huge wealth produced by Silicon Valley also shows up in how San Francisco and especially San Jose rank economically higher than their population size.  The same holds true for the Seattle metro home to Microsoft.  Charlotte and Indianapolis also pull more economic weight than other, larger metro areas.

There are some 'slackers' too.  While Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario ranks as the 12th largest metro area in the US population-wise, its GDP ranking is only 26.  Similarly, Orlando, Cincinnati, Sacramento, and Nashville all rank in the top 27 largest metros in terms of population but do not rank in the top 27 metros in GDP rank.  

The Amazing Economic Power of America's Cities in Six Maps

According to the World Bank, the United States is the world's largest economy with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $16,244,600 MILLION.  This is almost double the GDP of China, the second largest economy on the planet.

America's 365 metropolitan areas produce 87% of the United States' GDP.

America's Metropolitan Areas

If you visited a different metropolitan area each day, it would take you a full year to visit each one.

From the Big City Subway to Merica: Election 2012

Eight of every 10 Americans now lives in a city or its suburbs.  As these maps hint, I believe many of the political divisions between the "Blue" and "Red" states are manifestations of growing cultural differences between urban and rural Americans.  

First, there are the economic differences.  The 10 largest metropolitan areas produce a whopping 34% of the country's total GDP (Gross Domestic Product).  In every state except three -Montana, Wyoming, and Vermont- metro areas produce the majority of each state's economic output according to an analysis by the Brookings Institute.  The Brookings Institute study also finds 93% of scientists and engineers live in metro areas.  In 30 states, the bulk of international exports are produced in metro areas.  Cities large and small are America's economic engines.  

Merica, the mostly rural, Republican-voting counties of the United States, tend to be older, less educated, and poorer.  There is an on-going debate over the nature of net dollar transfers of Federal tax dollars that I will discuss in future posts.  Ironically, -to quote recent political rhetoric- the counties of rural Merica are the 'Takers' who receive more Federal tax dollars in entitlement programs and other Federal programs than the wealthier, Democrat-leaning 'Makers' in urban areas.  Urban areas do not pay higher taxes into the Federal coffers, but they do contribute more in total dollars because of higher incomes among city-dwellers and a greater production of the nation's GDP.  Most -though not all- rural areas produce less and have older, sicker, and poorer residents who use more Medicaid, Medicare, and other Federal programming dollars.  

So, from an economic perspective, rural voters should be supportive of programs that help rural areas and the poors by maintaining or raising taxes.  These are more the positions supported by Democrats.  Yet, rural voters -as the maps below show- in areas except of New England, New York, Illinois, Maryland and California voted Republican in the 2012 Presidential election.  In turn, the urban voters who pay in more than they get back should economically do better in theory by supporting politicians who seek to lower Federal taxes and cut social safety net programs.  Again though, urban voters heavily supported the Democratic candidate over the tax-and-social-programs-cutting Republican candidate in 2012.  Clearly, other factors around economic and cultural values outweigh voting based on how much you pay in and get back from the Feds.

The 2012 Presidential 

Alaska to New Jersey

Are you more a city or country person?  Well, this map and the graph below can help you decide where to move.  In 2012 the median number of residents per square mile in the US was about 98 people per square mile.  Alaska on the other hand had just over 1 person pers square mile.  On the other extreme is DC with 9,927 people per square mile and New Jersey with 1,169 people per square mile.

The graph below may help you to better grasp the huge differences between Alaska and New Jersey.  If each of these blue squares is a square mile, then each person symbol represents the number of people per square mile in each of these two states and the median population density for the US as a whole.

Urban America

Four out of five of we Americans live in cities.  In fact, most demographers believe the majority of humans on this planet now live in cities; an amazing shift.  For most of our species' history, most of us have lived in the country; in forests and on farms.  So the growth of huge metropolitan areas in the past century or two is a relatively new experiment among our kind.

This week I begin a re-posting of a series on urban America.  I hope you enjoy it.

Updated Civil Marriage Maps

Today's updated marriage maps show new information.  Now that there is a pending lawsuit seeking civil marriage for same-sex couples in every state, I've moved to showing where civil marriage is already legal (see map below) and an update on current court rulings (see map above).  On the map above the orange color (in North Carolina for example) means a Federal appeals court has issued a pro-marriage ruling for the appellate circuit that includes that state but not specifically on a case from that state.  In the example of North Carolina, the appellate court ruled on a case from Virginia (green).  The appellate circuit, however, includes Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia making similar bans on same-sex marriage in those states also likely unconstitutional.

New Civil Marriage Map

Between travels and moving, I've not had access to my mapping software.  Here finally is a quick update to my marriage map.  Let me know if you see any updates or changes I've not captured for the months I was away.

While I was overseas it appears Oregon and Pennsylvania added civil marriage for same-sex couples.  The Freedom to Marry folks who closely follow all the litigation report that since the Supreme Court's Windsor decision, 24 courts have ruled in favor of same-sex marriage with 0 ruling against.

Is the Typical American Fat?

Two out of every 3 American adults are now overweight (35.8%) or obese (27.6%) based on their BMI. While most American adults report being physically active in the past month, most of us do not eat our recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.