What States Have The Most People that are Widowed?

Introduction

According to the American Community Survey, 5.8% of Americans, 15 years of age or older, are widowed. Like any demographic trait though the results can vary a great deal by region and state. The visualization below shows what states have the highest proportion of the population that are widowed.

Visualization

Mobile Users: If you are having issues using the interactive version of this visualization, you can find a static version of it here.

Data Notes

The data used in this visualization is compiled by the US Census Bureau which produces the American Community Survey. I used the 2015 one year estimates from table B12001 from American Fact Finder. I used Excel to clean the data and Tableau to create the visualization.

For this question, respondents have 5 responses that they can choose from. Only respondents that are 15 years or older have there responses tallied in this total. Since the question is set up this way it is worth pointing out that this likely is only individuals that current relationship status is widowed. If someone was widowed, but remarried, they would likely choose that they were married. A screenshot of the question has been included below.