"Statistics" can be made to lie, and as I am sure you are well aware. In order to see if the quoted statistic is valid, you would also need to know how many "couples" in Mass live together without being married."
Great observation and your suspicions are correct.
The highest concentration of unmarried couples is in the West, mainly due to CA and Alaska.
Followed by the NorthEast.
The South had the lowest percentage of unmarried couples living together.
The average for the US is about 9.1% and MA had 9.9% putting them in the above average number of housholds. (DC was the worst with 21% !!!!!)
When it comes to "same sex" couples living together the average is 1% for the country....and the BLUE NorthEast leads the nation. MA has about 1.3%, again above the average. DC has 5.1%.
Unmarried couples% US average 9.1%
CT-9.2
ME-12.2
MA-9.9
NH-11
NJ-8.5
NY-10.3
PA-8.8
RI-10.5
VT-12.5
AL-6.1
AR-6.7
DE-10.7 Blue
DC-20.8 Blue
FL-10.4
GA-8.6
KY-7.7
LA-9.4
MD-10 Blue
MS-8.2
NC-8
OK-6.9
SC-8.3
TN-7.4
TX-7.6
VA-8.1
WV-8
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-5.pdf
Thanks for the data. Unfortunately, most Americans (liberals, in particular) will swallow the drivel without even thinking about it. Kinda' like the author of the story. :)