Gay money

The truth about lesbian & gay economics

Gay-married couples in the U.S. really are richer on the whole

The founding purpose of this project was to counter the myth – the outright lie – that “gays” are a “lucrative” market. Recent evidence about incomes of American married gay and lesbian couples proves that the groups I just mentioned really are richer than straight couples on the whole. For American gays and lesbians, gay marriage has become a luxury good.

Data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis publishes its own research. One paper, from 2016, is entitled “Joint Filing by Same-Sex Couples after Windsor: Characteristics of Married Tax Filers in 2013 and 2014.” In it, coauthors Robin Fisher, Geof Gee, and Adam Looney analyze income-tax data from the year gay marriage was legalized nationwide in the United States (2013) and the year after.

The paper is atrociously typeset and almost impossible to read. I’ll give you two versions:

  1. Tagged PDF with bookmark to numerical tables

  2. HTML version of main paper (no footnotes, endnotes, or tables; some elisions)

General findings

Gay marriage: In the United States, it’s a nice perq to have if you’re already doing well financially.

Posted: 2017.03.29