Though there are key shortcomings with the data the U.S. Treasury Department study relies on – particularly the fact that it is only current through late past year – it provides a uniquely granular view of same-sex marriage distribution that reveals much about gay marriage trends across the state and nation. This has been a reliable measure of heterosexual couples in the past; about 97.5 percent of married couples have filed jointly. MS came in last place with a rate of just.06 percent.
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New research from the US Treasury Department seems to suggest that households with gay, married fathers tend to earn the highest income.
Even though Kansas saw huge growth in 2014, the state’s overall percentage of same-sex couples is still lower than in most states.
The region comprised of zip codes beginning with 367 – a larger region by area comprising multiple Black Belt counties and cities including Selma – was the lone area with zero gay marriages.
The northeast corner of Minnesota also has an above average rate, with the 88 same-sex marriages in the Duluth area (558 zip-codes) accounting for 0.44 percent, while the North Shore (556 zip) has 13 same-sex marriages – 0.36 percent of all married couples.
Joint tax returns for 2014revealed that the average household earnings of a male same-sex couple is $176,000. Both those states legalized gay marriage years before Kansas did.
The study also revealed another noteworthy statistic: The demographic with the highest household income is male same-sex couples with children.
Figures released this week by the government have given new insight into America’s gay married couples since the introduction of same-sex marriage – and the New York Times has mapped it all.
Of these, 2,450 were female married couples and 1,550 male, and it’s more than likely to have gone up since then.
But it is important to understand the major caveats in reading this map and interpreting the data it and the Treasury study provide.
The study, which claims to provide the first estimates of the same-sex married population in the USA, aimed to paint a portrait of gay marriage after the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that allowed same-sex couples to be treated as married for all federal tax purposes.
About 750 same-sex couples in Kansas filed joint tax returns in 2014, an increase from 460 same-sex couples in 2013.
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And the data is also limited by the very fact that it only includes married couples that jointly file their taxes.
