Average US Household Size, 1947-2016 [CHART]

Chart: Average US Household Size - 1947-2016

Fully 28% of households now have just one person living in them, more than double the rate from 1960 (13%), reports the US Census Bureau. As a result of continued shifts in household types and family dynamics, the average household size is 2.53 this year, down from 3.3 some 50 years ago.

Single person households aren’t just restricted to youth. In fact, almost one-third (29%) of adults aged 65 and older live alone. In a fairly dramatic shift, householders aged 65 and older outnumber those under the age of 30 by almost a 2:1 ratio (31 million and 15.8 million, respectively), whereas these householders had been at virtual parity in the late 1970s. (Households are occupied housing units, and householders are the people in whose name the housing units is rented or owned. They must be at least 15 years of age.) Read the rest at MarketingCharts.com.

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  1. […] second, (relatively) minor reason is that the number of people in the typical American household is today lower than in the past. With any given amount of household income now being shared by a smaller number of people than in […]