The Business Impact of Opening Marriage to Same-sex Couples

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Explore how much money states have to gain by allowing same-sex couples to marry.

Same-sex couples, and their out-of-town guests, pump money into state economies as they plan their weddings and celebrate their milestone. This spending boost can lead to an increase in state and local tax revenue and an influx of tourism dollars that benefit local businesses. After the Supreme Court decision this summer, same-sex couples can now marry in all 50 states.

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METHODOLOGY:

Since 2005, we have published several state reports on the economic benefits of opening marriage to same-sex couples. For those states, we offer links to each individual report. The estimates for the remaining states in our visualization are informed by the methodology that we used in our previous reports. Click here for a recent example.

Sources:

We use U.S. Census 2010 data for the number of same-sex couples in each state. Wedding spending figures are adjusted, but based on research by The Wedding Report. For out-of-state guest spending, we utilize the per diem allowance for food and lodging by state as set forth by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). Tax rates and tourism data are from various sources.

Existing Marriages:

Up-to-date data regarding the number of existing marriages by residents of each state are not available at this time, thus we do not exclude those marriages from our analyses. However, we also do not include same-sex couples who are likely to travel from one state to another to marry.

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