Which states have the most single adults?

Looking for love in all the wrong places? Maybe its "slim pickins" in your town, as Sabrina Carpenter would say. If you're single and tired of the dating pool in your area, it may be time to switch your dating app's location. How about changing it to Alaska – where the ratio of unmarried men to women is the highest in the country (117 available men for every 100 women, to be exact).

Census Bureau data can't predict where you'll find love, but it can paint a picture of today's marriage market in the U.S.

The "marriage market" refers to a pool of eligible candidates available to those interested in romantic partnerships, according to the Census Bureau.

"The more eligible partners in a given market, the better the chances of forging a romantic partnership or marriage," the Census Bureau wrote in a recent post. The ratio of unmarried men to women is a "critical indicator of potential mate availability," the bureau said.

Here's what the marriage market looks like across the country:

Relationship status, defined

The Census Bureau defines single adults a bit differently than how you or I might define a relationship status.

The most recent data available shows that 48% of U.S. adults are single, nearly every other adult 18 or older. This rate includes divorcées, widowers, and those who have never married. Unfortunately, if you haven't defined your romantic relationship with a wedding ring, the census does not count you as taken.

The Pew Research Center provides another look into the state of relationships in the U.S.: 69% of Americans said they were partnered (51% said married, 11% said living with a partner, 8% said in a committed romantic relationship), according to Pew Research. That leaves 3 in 10 Americans claiming single status.

What is the ratio of unmarried men to women across the U.S.?

Washington, D.C., has one of the lowest ratios of unmarried men to women in the U.S.: 80 unmarried men for every 100 unmarried women. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming have the highest ratios of unmarried men to women compared with the rest of the country.

Where the ratio of unmarried men to women is lowest:

• Washington, D.C. (80 men to 100 women)
• Puerto Rico (81 men to 100 women)
• Delaware (82 men to 100 women)
• Alabama (82 men to 100 women)
• Maryland (83 men to 100 women)

Which states have the most singles?

The national rate of single adults in the U.S. is less than 50%, but the state with the highest ratio of singles is New Mexico, with 56.5% of adults either divorced, never married, widowed or separated. A majority of singles in New Mexico have never been married at 36%. Utah has the lowest rate of singles, with only 45.1% of adults now unmarried.

Pennsylvania is the state with the highest rate of adults who have never been married, about 1 in 4 adults, according to census data.

Relationship status of same-sex couples

Same-sex couples made up about 1.3 million households in the U.S, according to the most recent census data. Of those homes, 775,000 same-sex couples were married (59%) and about 536,000 were unmarried (41%).

As of 2023, the following states (plus the District of Columbia) had the highest rates of households with same-sex couples: Washington, D.C., at 2.7%, followed by Vermont (1.7%), Delaware (1.5%), and Rhode Island and Maine rounding out the top five states at 1.4%.