Are your single friends making us "poorer"? Obviously not, but the way we count household income means more one-person households *can* look poorer than a world with more married couples even if no single person earns a dollar less.
"Here's what you need to know. Being single is not literally making Americans poorer. But the fact that more households are single adults than in the past changes the math around household income measurement. Because household income is per household, not per adult. In 1969, married couple households were 70.6% of all households. By 2024, they were 46.6%. At the same time, one person households rose from 17% to just under 30%. Now, this is not about some morality story, but that does mess with measurement over time. It changes the story. Two adults in one home count as one household. Living separately, they count as two. Using the long running data, we can ask, what if 2024 households had 1969's composition? If that were the case, mean household income would be about $24,000 higher and median income would be about $22,000 higher. That median gap equals 74.9% of the entire observed increase since 1969. In other words, the long run story is partly household structure. And this is not only about marriage labels. If we instead group households by working age adults, the 2024 median gap is still about $13,000. So no, being single is not making us poorer, but fewer married couple households and more one person households make reported household income lower than under the old household mix. Know the math, see the story."
💬 Discussion
Are your single friends making us "poorer"? Obviously not, but the way we count household income means more one-person households *can* look poorer than a world with more married couples even if no single person earns a dollar less.