The provisional U.S. marriage rate was 6.1 marriage events per 1,000 residents in 2023, based on 2,041,926 recorded marriages. The CDC calls this a crude rate because it uses the total resident population, not only unmarried adults.
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The calculation behind 6.1
CDC's national table lists 2,041,926 marriages for 2023 and a U.S. resident population of 334,914,895. Divide the marriage count by the population and multiply by 1,000: the result rounds to 6.1 marriage events per 1,000 residents. The table labels the 2023 number and rate provisional, so both may be revised. Keep "2023" and "provisional" with the number rather than presenting it as a permanent or current-year measurement.
The numerator counts marriage events recorded during the year. It includes remarriages, not only first weddings. The denominator is everyone in the resident population, including children, people who are already married, and people who do not intend to marry. That is why CDC calls the result a crude marriage rate. It is a useful standard unit for annual event volume, but it does not isolate the people who could enter a marriage during the year.
The word "per" matters. A rate of 6.1 per 1,000 is not 6.1%. It corresponds arithmetically to 0.61 marriage events per 100 residents, but it would be misleading to say 0.61% of residents married. The numerator is events, not unique individuals; a marriage has two spouses. The clearest wording is the CDC unit: marriage events per 1,000 total residents.
Read the milestones without inventing a cause
The CDC table shows 8.2 marriages per 1,000 residents in 2000 and 6.1 in 2023. That is a decline of 2.1 marriage events per 1,000, calculated from the published rounded rates. Between those endpoints, the series moved through different conditions. It was 6.1 in 2019, 5.1 in 2020, 6.0 in 2021, 6.2 in 2022, and 6.1 in provisional 2023 data. The table shows both the longer decline and the short-term movement around 2020.
The 2020 value is the lowest of those listed milestone years, and the 2021 and 2022 figures show a rebound. The table itself does not measure how many couples delayed a ceremony or changed plans. The 2020 point coincides with the first pandemic year, but the size of any specific contribution to this national rate cannot be calculated from the rate row alone. Do not assign the full difference between 2019 and 2020 to one cause.
In 2023 the published rate was 0.1 marriage per 1,000 lower than in 2022. That is a small movement in the rounded crude series, not a 0.1 percentage-point fall in residents who married. The 2019 and 2023 rows both show 6.1 to one decimal place. They do not prove that the exact underlying ratios or marriage counts were identical. A rounded rate is designed for a broad comparison, not a precise tie-breaker.
What can change a crude rate
The formula has a marriage-event count above a total-population count. If recorded marriages change while population stays similar, the crude rate changes. If the resident population changes while the number of marriages stays similar, the rate can also move. The age and marital-status mix of the population matters because the denominator includes people at very different life stages. A crude rate does not adjust for that mix.
Marriage timing can affect annual event volume. If weddings that might have occurred in one year happen in a later year, the two yearly rates can move in opposite directions even though those couples ultimately marry. The CDC milestones alone cannot identify that timing shift for specific couples. Likewise, a declining crude rate could reflect several processes at once. It does not, by itself, show that fewer people will ever marry during their lives.
To test whether a change came from population composition or marriage behavior within age groups, use age-specific rates or a study that adjusts for the relevant groups. This page's CDC series supplies the crude national rate. It does not include the comparison needed to allocate the change among demographic or personal causes. You can still use it to answer the narrow question: how many marriage events were recorded relative to the size of the total U.S. population in each year?
Why it is not a personal marriage probability
Imagine two residents in the denominator: a 10-year-old child and a 45-year-old who is already married. Both contribute to the population used in the crude rate, although neither belongs in a simple group of unmarried adults considering marriage that year. The event numerator also does not distinguish a first marriage from a remarriage. Those design choices make the published 6.1 unsuitable as the chance that a particular unmarried adult will marry within 12 months.
An annual probability would need a defined group at risk, a consistent time window, and a way to identify who entered marriage during it. Even then, age, relationship status, location, and other factors would change the estimate. The crude CDC rate is not flawed because it omits those details; it answers a different question. Treating it as a personal forecast is the error.
It also cannot estimate how many people are available to date. Someone can be unmarried and not seeking a relationship; someone can be dating without marrying in the observed year. Marriage events occur after a series of private decisions that the event count does not observe. If your question concerns a dating pool, start with a source that measures the population and relationship status you mean, then state which forms of availability remain unknown.
Do not subtract the divorce rate
A common shortcut subtracts the crude divorce rate from the crude marriage rate, as if the remainder were marriages that "lasted." The two rates count different events in the same calendar year. Many divorces in 2023 concern marriages formed long before 2023, while most marriages formed in 2023 have had little time for a later outcome. Subtraction cannot follow one marriage through its life. A survival or divorce-risk estimate needs a defined marriage cohort observed over time.
The CDC's provisional divorce row has another limit for direct comparison: its 2023 divorce count comes from 45 reporting states and the District of Columbia, and its crude rate uses the population in those reporting areas. The national marriage rate uses the whole U.S. resident population. Even if the events were conceptually comparable, the geographic coverage of these two published rows is not the same. A difference between them would mix definitions and populations.
The marriage rate also does not give a same-sex or opposite-sex breakdown. The national event series cited here does not separate marriages by the spouses' sex. If you see a claim about a subgroup, check for a source that observes that subgroup directly. Household surveys, marriage records, and annual crude national rates can each be useful, but a statistic cannot supply a category it did not collect or publish.
Use the right companion measure
Use the U.S. marriage-statistics overview when you need to compare the annual count with the separate Census median age at first marriage. That age is a timing measure from a different source and year, not a correction to the 6.1 rate. A later age at first marriage is compatible with many different annual event rates.
Use the state-rate table when your question names a state. Its rows count ceremonies in the state and divide by that state's residents. A couple can live in one state and marry in another, so state rates have a location issue that is less visible in the national total. Even within states, the crude denominator includes everyone, not only people of marriageable age or unmarried people.
When you quote any rate, carry four labels with it: the year, the numerator event, the denominator population, and whether the value is provisional. For this article they are 2023, recorded marriages, total U.S. residents, and provisional. Those four labels let another reader reproduce the interpretation and prevent the most common mistake: turning a population-scaled event count into an individual's likelihood of marrying.
The data
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| Year | Rate per 1,000 | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 8.2 | Start of the cited national series |
| 2019 | 6.1 | Last pre-pandemic year |
| 2020 | 5.1 | Lowest rate in the cited 2000–2023 series |
| 2021 | 6.0 | Initial rebound |
| 2022 | 6.2 | Highest post-2020 point in the cited table |
| 2023 | 6.1 | Provisional; 2,041,926 recorded marriages |
“Denominator” means the full group used to calculate a percentage or rate.
How to read it: The overall rate uses the total resident population. This full-population rate is also called a crude rate. It shows event volume, not the annual probability that an unmarried adult will marry.
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