Updated Marriage Map

Today civil marriages for same-sex couples became legal in Florida.  If we add in Missouri and Kansas (see below), 37 states and the District of Columbia now offer civil marriage licenses to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.  Basically the number of states where same-sex civil marriages are legal doubled in 2014 after a string of court rulings based on the Windsor case.  One article I read stated that 4 out of 5 Americans now live in a state where same-sex couples can legally wed.  Using 2010 Census data, I came to the figure of 73% of the population living in a state with marriage but those data are 5 years old now.

There are many complications to this story however:

*The US Supreme Court avoided taking up the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans in 2014.  After a split in appellate court rulings developed after a 2-1 ruling by the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati upheld the bans, the US Supreme Court has agreed to discuss whether to address the question of same-sex marriage bans and the US Constitution.  The Court will decide whether to take a case or pass again on the issue in January.

*Same-sex couples can only marry in a handful of jurisdictions in Missouri, but the state government recognizes these marriages.  Other jurisdictions continue to refuse licenses to couples pending more litigation.

*Neighboring Kansas is also a strange case.  A handful of jurisdictions there issue licenses but the state continues to refuse to recognize these marriages in spite of a ruling striking down marriage bans by the 10th Circuit.  

*Idaho's governor and attorney general are also appealing the striking down of that state's ban.

*Couples were briefly allowed to marry in Arkansas and Michigan.  After the 6th Circuit's ruling upholding Michigan's ban, Michigan's governor rushed to announce the marriages that had already occurred there using legally issued licenses at that time never happened and were void.  Even if that state's ban is upheld in appeal, the retroactive voiding of these marriages is likely to be more litigation.

*All this litigation by state officials seeking to uphold marriage bans is proving costly to states.  As state officials are losing more than 27 cases in 2014 over the unconstitutionality of these laws, they must by law pay the court costs of the citizens challenging these bans.  

I feel that it is likely the US Supreme Court will take up the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans in 2015 and issue a ruling.  The number of states with and without marriage now closely resembles the lineup of states before major court decisions on interracial marriages and school desegregation.  Most of the states have already adopted the new policies with the usual holdouts in the former Confederacy as well as the 6th Circuit states and the sparsely populated Dakotas and Nebraska remaining.  I should add that Puerto Rico and other US territories are also holdouts.  I predict that by January 2016 civil marriages will be open to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples alike with future generations wondering what all the fuss was about.  

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.

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.

Vacant Homes

The Great Recession starting in 2008 hit the housing industry hard.  New constructions plummeted.  Foreclosures skyrocketed.  Displaced former owners moved into rental property.

This map shows a snapshot from the 2010 Census of the percentage of vacant properties in each state.  So, I'm not sure how much of this pattern results from the Great Recession.  California and Nevada for instance had a large number of foreclosed properties, but the percentages of vacant housing are low there for 2010.

After looking at the Census definitions, I think this pattern is driven largely by vacation homes which are absent during parts of the year.  Note that more than a fifth of housing units are vacant in Vermont and Maine.  I suspect that beach and winter vacation homes in Florida, Myrtle Beach (SC), and Rehoboth Beach (DE) as well as summer homes in New England, Montana, and Alaska produce this pattern.  I once visited Skagway, Alaska.  I recall being told that the town had over 1000 residents in the summer but only about 100 through the winter.

The Typical American, More on Age

If you are 37, then you are the same age as the Typical American.  In fact, the mean age among Americans in 2012 was 37.4 and the median age was 37.4 too.  The median age has been creeping up as the large Baby Boomer cohort ages. In 2007 for instance the median age was 35.

In only one state is the median age under 30:  Utah.  In seven states the median age is now over 40:  Maine, West Virginia, , Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Florida.  West Virginia likely has an older population because of a large out-migration of younger people to other states for jobs.  Florida on the other hand reflects the opposite:  a large in-migration of retirees.  Only five years earlier in 2007, there were NO states where the median age was over 40.

Map: What States Have the Most Discouraged Workers?

This map shows the variation in discouraged workers nationally.  Discouraged workers are unemployed Americans who have given up looking for a job for awhile and have not applied for any jobs in the past 4 weeks.

In no states does the percentage of discouraged workers exceed 1%, so the numbers are relatively low. This map calculates discouraged workers as the U4 unemployment measure by the Bureau of Labor Statitistics minus U3.  U4 consists of the official unemployment measure (U3) plus discouraged workers.  So I've pulled discouraged workers out and looked at the spread of data by standard deviations.

North Dakota's oil-fueled jobs boom continues to keep that state's unemployment the lowest in the US.  Nevada's 9.7% unemployment (U4 measure) is actually higher than South Carolina's 9.3% rate, but the Palmetto State has the highest percentage of discouraged workers in the country -at least in December 2013.  Neighboring Georgia, Alabama, and Florida also have higher percentages of discouraged workers compared to the mean for the United States.

And Florida Joins the Same-sex Marriage Fight

Yesterday Equality Florida, that state's leading LGBT advocacy group, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Florida's ban on same-sex marriage and legalize same-sex marriage in America's 4th most populous state. This means:

• 21 states with active lawsuits directly seeking to legalize same-sex marriage
• 4 states with active lawsuits related to same-sex marriage
• 17 states + DC where legal same-sex marriages are on-going and uncontested
• 1 state trying to actively ban same-sex marriage by amending its state constitution (Indiana)

It is difficult to categorize some cases as seeking to legalize marriage or only related.  In the four states with active lawsuits related to same-sex marriage, two involve couples being able to file joint state tax returns.  In Kansas a lawsuit is seeking the right of same-sex couples married in other states to file jointly on their state tax returns.  Married couples throughout the US can now file jointly on their Federal taxes.  Next door in Missouri, the governor issued a regulation allowing married same-sex couples to file jointly on their state taxes.  An anti-gay group is now suing to stop joint state tax returns in Missouri.

Wisconsin has a domestic partnership law that gives same-sex couples 44 of the 200+ state benefits of marriage.  An anti-gay group sued claiming this law runs afoul of that state's ban on same-sex marriages.  The case is proceeding there over the partnership law and not marriage.

Similarly, a Montana lawsuit is seeking all the benefits of equal civil marriage for same-sex couples but not actual marriage.