Single Person Households in the U.S. Since 1900

How many single person households were there in 1909? Or 1945? Or 2011?

Those aren't necessarily easy questions to answer, but today, we're going to first by visualizing the number of single person households in the United States since 1900, and then by presenting a tool to extract the data from our visualization. To do that, we'll use all the data we've been able to obtain from the U.S. Census Bureau, which up until 1960, isn't very much. That limitation is what makes those questions not so easy to answer!

To get around that limitation, we've created a model of the percentage share of single person households for each year since 1900 for the data that we do have available, which we can then use to estimate the number of single person households over time in conjunction with our previously introduced model describing the total number of U.S. households since 1900!

All that work comes together in our chart below:

You can use the following tool to extract the estimated number of households or single person households for any given year shown in the chart above, along with the percentage of single person households among all U.S. households.

Year of Interest
Input Data	Values
Select Year	1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Estimated Number of Households
Calculated Results	Values
Total U.S. Households
Single-Person Households
Percentage Share of Single Person Households

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References

Political Calculations. Modeling U.S. Households Since 1900. 8 February 2013.

U.S. Census Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003. Table No. HS-12. Households by Type and Size: 1900 to 2002. [PDF Document].

U.S. Census Bureau. Demographic Trends in the 20th Century. Table 13. Households by Size for the United States: 1900 to 2000. [PDF Document].

U.S. Census Bureau. Table HH-4. Households by Size: 1960 to Present. Excel Spreadsheet].

Social Indicators 1976. Selected Data on Social Conditions and Trens in the United States. Table 2/17. Average Household Size, Single-Person Households as a Percent of All Households, and Number of Divorces per 1,000 Population, Selected Countries and Years: 1955-1975. [Online Book]. December 1977.