New report released on impact of unmarried Americans

Women's Voices, Women's Votes (WVWV) has just released an extensive new report documenting a huge and largely untapped political resource, that of unmarried Americans, and of unmarried women in particular. Some of the key findings of the report include:

• The percentage of unmarried Americans has been steadily increasing over the last 50 years, from 32.4% in 1960 to to 45.2% in 2007, with unmarried households being the majority in 23 states.
• Unmarried women make up 25% of the eligible electorate in the United States.
  Currently, they are less likely than married women to vote (54.8% of unmarried women vote, compared to 71% of married women).
• Unmarried women in America tend to be younger, less affluent, and more racially diverse than married women.
• In the 2004 election, a full 66% of unmarried women voters voted Democratic, compared to 48% of married women.
• Unmarried women tend to want a government that is "more active in the pursuit of economic and social justice."

Clearly, this is an important group to be paying attention to as progressives. NDN and our New Politics Institute work hard to understand the impact of changing demographics for progressive politics, so we'll be keeping an eye on this research as it develops, so we can better understand how to bring all kinds of progressives to the polls in greater numbers.