This data viz shows what percentage of households are occupied by 1 person. The visualization was created in Tableau and the data comes from the 2023 American Community Survey.
Let me know if you think there are things I should add.
The three lowest make sense. Utah and Idaho have Mormons and big families, and no one in California can afford a place to live by themselves.
Hawaii makes sense. Whenever someone tells me they’re moving alone to Hawaii to live the dream, in my head I know they’ll be back in a year. Yes, culturally there’s still a lot of multigenerational households, but in the end, the cost of living is too high and the wages too low to make it as a one-income household for most people.
[deleted]
Finally a map that’s not just wealth or cities.
Putting New Jersey at the top of the lowest is a little confusing because that will make readers think that it is the lowest not the fifth most lowest
what’s kinda striking is that dc has almost half of households as just one person, while places like california and hawaii, where you’d expect lots of singles, are actually at the bottom. looks like the insane housing costs in ca/hi/nj push people into sharing, but dc is this weird outlier because it’s packed with young, transient professionals who can afford or are willing to live alone for career reasons. and then on the other end you see north dakota, south dakota, west virginia showing up high too, which is probably not about young singles at all but older folks aging in place. so you’ve got this split story: urban dc with ambitious solo renters, and rural states with older populations living alone, while the supposedly “single-friendly” coastal expensive states are actually the most crowded
[removed]
So, about 20 – 35 % (excluding DC, which isn’t a state). Color it all one color.
West Virginia is interesting – is it a high number of elderly living alone?
Can you make the same map but for the year 2000? Would be interesting to compare.
My partner and I live together but aren’t married and file taxes separately. How would we be counted?
Dakotas and Louisiana are probably oil workers, I’d guess.
I live in an older neighborhood in suburban Cleveland, OH and by my count there’s about 33% of us living alone here. Mostly widows. Interesting.
If you plotted this data on a scale of 100% single families (college campus, military barracks) to 0% single families all of these states would fall in the same decile. You’ve illustrated a difference that isn’t statistically significant.
Interesting for DC – given the cost of living and as a district resident myself, 48% seems way off. Even considering the old money in the district, most homes are occupied by families or roommates. Living by yourself here takes a high 5 figures to be comfortable unless you have really good discipline which I doubt 48% do…
How is a one person household defined?
Wonder how much this correlates with housing costs.
Why bin the data? Are those meaningful bins somehow?
Imagine living in a 2500sqft house for just one single person
Wow those are crazy high numbers.
North Dakota makes a lot of sense to me although I bet it depends on the price of oil. Lots of high paying, low scrutiny jobs in the Bakken that attract men. Particularly men with records. Likely leads to a decent chunk of the single person households.
No input on the data itself, I just thought using Squidward Tentacles’ color pallette was an odd choice.
25 comments
This data viz shows what percentage of households are occupied by 1 person. The visualization was created in Tableau and the data comes from the 2023 American Community Survey.
You can find an interactive version of this information in the [State Data Explorer](https://overflowdata.com/state-data/) I have created.
Let me know if you think there are things I should add.
The three lowest make sense. Utah and Idaho have Mormons and big families, and no one in California can afford a place to live by themselves.
Hawaii makes sense. Whenever someone tells me they’re moving alone to Hawaii to live the dream, in my head I know they’ll be back in a year. Yes, culturally there’s still a lot of multigenerational households, but in the end, the cost of living is too high and the wages too low to make it as a one-income household for most people.
[deleted]
Finally a map that’s not just wealth or cities.
Putting New Jersey at the top of the lowest is a little confusing because that will make readers think that it is the lowest not the fifth most lowest
what’s kinda striking is that dc has almost half of households as just one person, while places like california and hawaii, where you’d expect lots of singles, are actually at the bottom. looks like the insane housing costs in ca/hi/nj push people into sharing, but dc is this weird outlier because it’s packed with young, transient professionals who can afford or are willing to live alone for career reasons. and then on the other end you see north dakota, south dakota, west virginia showing up high too, which is probably not about young singles at all but older folks aging in place. so you’ve got this split story: urban dc with ambitious solo renters, and rural states with older populations living alone, while the supposedly “single-friendly” coastal expensive states are actually the most crowded
[removed]
So, about 20 – 35 % (excluding DC, which isn’t a state). Color it all one color.
West Virginia is interesting – is it a high number of elderly living alone?
Can you make the same map but for the year 2000? Would be interesting to compare.
My partner and I live together but aren’t married and file taxes separately. How would we be counted?
Dakotas and Louisiana are probably oil workers, I’d guess.
I live in an older neighborhood in suburban Cleveland, OH and by my count there’s about 33% of us living alone here. Mostly widows. Interesting.
If you plotted this data on a scale of 100% single families (college campus, military barracks) to 0% single families all of these states would fall in the same decile. You’ve illustrated a difference that isn’t statistically significant.
Interesting for DC – given the cost of living and as a district resident myself, 48% seems way off. Even considering the old money in the district, most homes are occupied by families or roommates. Living by yourself here takes a high 5 figures to be comfortable unless you have really good discipline which I doubt 48% do…
How is a one person household defined?
Wonder how much this correlates with housing costs.
Why bin the data? Are those meaningful bins somehow?
Imagine living in a 2500sqft house for just one single person
Wow those are crazy high numbers.
North Dakota makes a lot of sense to me although I bet it depends on the price of oil. Lots of high paying, low scrutiny jobs in the Bakken that attract men. Particularly men with records. Likely leads to a decent chunk of the single person households.
No input on the data itself, I just thought using Squidward Tentacles’ color pallette was an odd choice.
Interesting. One person here. 🤔
Here’s [a multi-level map](https://mappage.net.au/?s=xpq1h4im) for this in Australia.
Australia overall 25.6%.
Tas 29.1%, SA 28.6%, Vic 25.9%, ACT 25.8%, WA 25.4%, NSW 25%, Qld 24.7%, NT 23.9%.
I’m surprised some states of the US are so different. Australia was around 25% even before our house prices went through the roof.
Is this part of the housing crisis?
Comments are closed.