This Tax Day, if you’re a Detroiter you’re more than likely filing single — and paying thousands of dollars extra because of it.
Detroit is one of the most single big cities in the country. Three out of every four Detroiters say they are unmarried and more than half have never been married, according to Census data. In comparison, about half of all residents in Michigan and the United States are unmarried.
“Single status can cost an individual upwards of a million dollars in a lifetime beyond what a married peer of a similar age and demography would be paying,” said Jessica Moorman, a fourth-generation Detroiter and communications professor at Wayne State University studying the experiences of single Black women.
In metro Detroit, single individuals spend nearly $11,000 more per year on living costs than a household with two incomes, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator. That would be $649,000 over the average adult lifetime. The benefits afforded to married couples are plentiful: They can share health insurance and other living costs, save on tax returns, take leave from work to care for their spouse, make more money on selling a home and have an easier time passing it on to create intergenerational wealth, and it’s easier to change their names.
“In addition to these kinds of structural components, being single is attached to a larger social stigma,” said Moorman, drawing on observations from the more than 50 interviews she conducted with single Black women living in Detroit for her upcoming book titled “Living Singlehood: The Values and Strategies Shaping Unmarried Life for Black Women.”
Many single people want to get married, but challenges abound: They aren’t sure where to meet people in the city, feel like the landscape of the Motor City is anti-dating and that things simply got a little weird coming out of the pandemic. Others have found meaningful long-term relationships and partnerships without marriage. But regardless of the reasons, there’s often a social stigma and financial cost.
There is research that people perceive singles as immature, self-centered and lonely. On the contrary, single people actually have stronger social ties and are more likely to support friends and family, research shows.
But the social stigma is so strong that all but one of the singles BridgeDetroit spoke to for this article agreed to be included only under the condition of anonymity. These sources are identified by the first initial of their first name.
“I definitely feel stigmatized,” said Detroiter John Marsh who moved to New Jersey in 2009 to work for the National Football League where he won three Emmy Awards. In 2022, he moved back to Detroit, and since then, he said he’s been trying to find work and love.
“I'm a serial monogamist and I'm also chronically single,” said Marsh, who hasn’t been on a date since moving back. He said he often feels judgment from people that something must be wrong with him since he’s 38 with no children or partner.
Until a few months ago, he was paying for premium services on three dating apps (Tinder, Hinge and Bumble) before logging off when he learned that most people on dating apps aren’t looking for anything serious. According to one survey of users on Tinder — the most widely used dating platform — more than half said they weren’t actually interested in dating and two-thirds were already in a relationship.
Being single means unwanted and unhelpful advice from partnered people, Marsh said.
“One thing I said when I quit the apps is like, ‘please don't comment saying that this is time for me to work on myself.’ Because I know that and also I'm gonna constantly be working on myself whether I'm single or in a relationship, that work doesn't stop, right? I just want somebody to go to Barcade with while I'm working on myself.”
In February, he went to a reality show-esque speed dating event at Yum Village in New Center, called Match Made on Stage. Marsh said he had a great time, but ultimately didn’t find love at the event. Beyond his own shyness, Marsh said he feels a barrier to being partnered in Detroit is not knowing good places to meet people as an older single person.
“Where do you go when you hit a certain age to try to hang out? There’s plenty of stuff to do, I'm a big proponent of that – there’s a lot of stuff to do in Detroit and it’s not always downtown. But if you're trying to find somebody, what does that look like?”
Another lifelong Black male Detroiter, C, 30, is in the music industry. His last relationship ended six months ago. For the majority of his adult life, he has been single, but he says he definitely wants to get married.
“Right now I'm not particularly looking, but I'm open,” he said. As an introvert with an extroverted job, C said one of the things he likes about being single is doing things by himself.
C said he would partially attribute Detroit’s singleness to new people moving to the city and to a landscape not conducive to meeting people. Having lived in Chicago for one year, C said it’s much easier to meet people and date there, compared to Detroit.
“The city of Detroit is for cars, so that plays a major factor in actually seeing people, interacting. You might run into a coffee shop and some random person in Chicago – here, we're mainly driving everywhere,” he said.
One in three Detroiters do not have a car, and public transit resources are lacking, possibly making it hard to even get to a date.
Chicago is 63% unmarried compared to Detroit’s 76% rate.
Why so single?
Over the last decade the marriage rates in Detroit have been consistent, according to Census data, but the reason why 76% of Detroiters are unmarried is hard to pin down.
“What causes high rates of single status is far from well articulated,” said Moorman, being careful to point out that there are some correlating statistics that are not causal.
For example, nationally, Black people are way less likely to be married than white people, and Detroit is majority Black.
“We have to remember that Black people weren't granted legal access to marriage until 1865,” said Moorman. “So we've never had equal access to marriage as a people and we've never had rates of marriage that are comparable to white Americans. We as a people have learned to form community and connection outside of the need for marriage.”
That can include living in an intergenerational home where there is non-spousal support in general and for things like child rearing. Two times as many Black Americans live in intergenerational households than white Americans, according to the Pew Research Center. For people with a family system that already works for them, the cost of getting married and moving in with a partner might not make sense, Moorman said.
In 2021, the average cost of a wedding in Michigan was $25,000, more than the average Detroiter makes in a year, roughly $23,000 in 2022, according to the Census Bureau.
Another factor, Moorman said, is shifting gender norms.
“Women need marriage differently than we have historically,” she said, noting that it wasn’t until 1974 that women could open a bank account in their own name.
The shifting demographics from people moving into Detroit also make it hard to determine why Detroit is so unmarried, she added.
Amalia Miralrío is a relationship therapist in Detroit. At any given time, Miralrío said she has 15 to 20 clients that pay $200 for a 50-minute therapy session focused on relationship issues (Miralrío doesn’t accept insurance).
“A lot of people find me for individual work when they're struggling with romantic relationships,” she said. “I work with a lot of single women who are wanting to understand their own histories, dating histories, family of origin, their upbringing, sometimes trauma and what kinds of patterns are being replayed in their romantic or dating relationships.”
T is a 47-year-old Black Detroiter who works as a professional organizer. T has been single for the last seven years, since taking a break from dating to address trauma.
“Being single began as a survival practice. I wasn't feeling held and safe in the ways I needed while in romantic relationships,” she said.
But after so many years of being single, T said the experience transformed from escaping trauma to a peaceful experience she enjoys.
“I find companionship in non-romantic friendships, familial relationships, travel, church and doing things I am passionate about and enjoy,” she said. “I don't know what the future holds, but I'm grateful I am not lonely, and I'm thriving in my current reality.”
Miralrío said there are other factors that make dating hard particularly right now, including the use of dating apps and coming out of COVID-19.
“The apps have been really hard on people,” she said.
In one survey of Americans who had used a dating app or site in the last year, 45% said it left them feeling more frustrated than hopeful (28%).
A is one such person. A is a white woman, 34, and a project manager who moved from the suburbs to Detroit in 2012. She has been single for the last 5 years but said dating has gotten even worse since the pandemic.
“It's like you start talking to someone for a little bit and then all of a sudden you both just kind of stop talking and there's just sort of this lack of energy,” she said. “I don't really know what that is. It's bizarre because it wasn't like that before [COVID-19], to the same degree.”
A said she also finds it hard to meet people, attributing the difficulties in Detroit to varying dating norms that exist in all of the different racial populations in the city as well as a lack of third spaces — a space outside of work or home — to meet people.
“I'm sort of ambivalent about it at this point,” she said. At 32, A bought a home on her own. There are obvious financial disadvantages to being a single homeowner, she said.
Certified public accountant Nicole Kirkland said married people can be seen as less risky to lenders in the home buying process.
“The combination of incomes tends to allow for more buying power, and more preferred interest rates,” said Kirkland, adding that passing real estate on to the next generation is easier when you’re married. And, when selling a home, a single person can exempt $250,000 in profits from taxes, compared to a married couple who can exempt $500,000.
There’s a whole other group of Detroiters that aren’t single but aren’t married, and some that are outside of it all.
“There are a lot of people who are uninterested in getting married, who are more interested in the quality of the partnership than they are in checking a box that might not resonate with them,” noted Miralrío.
Nationally, over the last decade, the number of unmarried partners living together has tripled. Other Detroiters are unmarried because they don’t believe in, or engage in monogamy at all.
Moorman stressed that all families, whether it’s a single mom or unmarried parents living together, or some other configuration, are good.
“These are all legitimate family structures. Let's not attach a price tag that privileges one form of family over another,” she said.
Moorman wants to see the marginalization of single people eliminated.
“Single status is the single most important policy issue we're not considering as a city, as a state, as a nation, as a world, almost because it literally touches on everything,” she said, from the new construction of housing to transportation to the experiences of giving birth.
“No one should be penalized for not being legally attached to someone.”
Research shows the majority of Americans would agree with her; approximately two-thirds of Americans are in support of unmarried people receiving the same benefits as married people, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study.
Looking for love
On Friday night, more than 30 people gathered in the basement of The Congregation, a cafe in Detroit’s Boston Edison neighborhood for a chance to find love. The room was adorned with string lights and red lighting for a Match Made on Stage event.
Anyone could sign up to be randomly paired with another person from the group to have a first date up on stage while an audience watched. Those who signed up got a ticket for a free drink.
The founder of the event, Shima Darby, said she created it in 2022 because first dates can be intimidating and awkward, and she wanted to provide a fun social experience.
Darby herself was in a nine-year partnership and bought a house in East English Village with her partner, but said that growing up with divorced parents, she never wanted to get married.
“From what I saw I didn't think it was worth going through the legality of it just to express that you're in love with somebody and willing to commit an entire life with them,” she said.
Does it matter if the basement full of young hopefuls gets married?
Slightly more than half (53%) of Americans say that society is better off if long-term couples get married, with even more Black Americans (61%) saying so.
Michigan is facing a population crisis, and some research suggests that unmarried young people are more likely to leave.
Between July 2020 and July 2022 Detroit lost approximately 8,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census. The state of Michigan, too, is losing residents: Experts estimate that even with people moving to the state, Michigan’s population could decline by nearly 700,000 residents by 2050.
Unmarried Michigan residents are less likely to see themselves living in this state in ten years, compared to married residents, according to a statewide survey of 18-29-year-olds.
Accounting expert Kirkland said it definitely has benefits to build a life with someone, versus alone.
“When I speak with unmarried clients there seems to be a stigma in regard to marriage these days, with people not seeing the benefits or need for marriage,” she said.
But she pointed out myriad of tax benefits to being married, even before credits or deductions, married people save on tax returns because joint filing allows for higher income within the tax brackets.
“While no one should marry just for financial reasons, I think relationships that are similarly focused to achieve goals, can truly benefit in the long run financially, emotionally and spiritually considering marriage as an option,” she said.
Social researcher Moorman said it isn’t important if people get married or not, nor as important why they’re not.
“I don't care whether people get married. I don't have an opinion about marriage. I have an opinion about the economic and social enfranchisement we attach to marriage,” she said. “What I care about is why are they being discriminated against for making those choices.”