Should we really be shocked by these findings? I did a small survey of my own, I asked twenty people mostly friends over the course of two weeks how many of their family or friends were married or just living together. Guess what, the numbers came out to half and half and they seem to have been that way for a long time.



In 2005, the American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau (USCB) sifted through all possible records. That means the U.S.C.B. searched through records regarding family to national politics. The results were that 50.2 percent of American households were not married. Out of the 55.8 millions households, 14 million were ran by single mothers, 5 million were ran by single fathers, and 36.7 million were “non family households” - which were heterosexual or gay couples that were cohabiting.

Within those statistics 30 million unmarried women and men were living alone. Those that were unmarried tend to live in larger metropolitan cities like Los Angeles and New York. As for those married households, they only made up 55.2 million households, and they lived in the Midwest and the West. That is a drastic drop from 2000 survey when the married population was up to 105.5 million households.

The picture becomes a little bit more questionable once we involve politics. The Bush administration has for the past few years pushed towards a better understanding of family unity and family values. President Bush and his administration has even created special tax breaks, legislation, and church sponsored campaigns to instill an understanding of family but it seems to have had little or no effect.