Married, same-sex couples top 500,000

ORLANDO, Fla. — Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages around the U.S., more than a half million households are made up of married same-sex couples, according to figures the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

Since 2014, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriages, the number of married samesex households has increased by almost 70%, rising to 568,110 couples in 2019, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Of the 980,000 same-sex couple households reported in 2019, 58% were married couples and 42% were unmarried partners, the survey showed.

There were slightly more female couple households than male couple households.

“Opponents of marriage equality frequently argued that same-sex couples really weren’t all that interested in marriage. But the large increase in marriages among same-sex couples since marriage equality became legal nationwide offers evidence of the clear desire for marriage among same-sex couples,” said Gary Gates, a demographer specializing in LGBT issues.

The survey revealed noticeable economic differences between male couples and female couples, as well as same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples.

Same-sex married couples had a higher median income than opposite-sex married couples, $107,210 compared with $96,932. In same-sex marriages, though, male couples earned more than female couples, $123,646 versus $87,690.

According to the survey, same-sex married households were more likely to be in the workforce than opposite-sex married households, 84.6% compared with 80.4%.