A new study has revealed the US state with the highest number of divorced people, but the figure is still surprisingly low.
Even though it tops the list, there are far fewer divorcees in the state than expected, and marital breakdown is steadily on the decline.
State with highest divorce rate
Family law attorneys Melone Hatley, P.C. found that the state with the most divorcees is Wyoming, where 13.34% of the total population are divorced.
They analyzed the latest US Census Bureau marital state data from 2022 and found the total number of divorced people in each state.
They then compared this against the state’s population to find out what percentage of people are divorced.
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In Wyoming, 63,346 were divorced, and the state had a total population of 474,965, which is 13.34% of people.
Figure is surprisingly low
Just over 13% of divorcees in the state is a surprisingly low percentage, and that’s the top of the list, so divorce rates are even lower in every other state. We often hear the phrase “half of marriages end in divorce” – so how are divorce rates so low?
Well, it all comes down to the way divorces are calculated. For example, in 2006, the marriage rate was 6.9 out of 1,000 people and the divorce rate was 3.2 out of 1,000 people, data shared by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals.
When you divide these two figures, you get 46.3% of marriages ending in divorce – which is almost half! However, the people getting married in 2006 weren’t the ones getting divorced in the same year, so it doesn’t really work.
The same data shows that divorce has been steadily declining in the US since 2000. In 2000, there were 944,000 divorces, and by 2010 this was down to 872,000. In 2022 there were just 673,989 divorces, and those are the numbers we should really be looking at.
Top 10 states with most divorcees
- Wyoming – 13.35%
- West Virginia – 13.19%
- Nevada – 13.10%
- Oregon – 12.91%
- New Mexico – 12.89%
- Arkansas – 12.87%
- Maine – 12.72%
- Kentucky – 12.56%
- Oklahoma – 12.47%
- New Hampshire – 12.43%
The study was conducted by family attorney Melone Hatley, P.C., a top law firm in Virginia and North Carolina.
