As same-sex couples in Pennsylvania celebrate a judge’s ruling striking down the state’s gay marriage ban, a new report finds that marriage equality could add as much as $92 million to the state’s economy.
Researchers at the Williams Institute, an independent think tank at UCLA’s School of Law, estimate that as many as 11,000 couples will marry in the first three years in which same-sex marriage is legal, generating between $65 million to $92.1 million, with a $42 million to $58.9 million boost in the first year alone.
The economic boost would add $4.2 million to $5.8 million in sales tax revenue to state and local coffers.
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The study reflects in-state couples’ spending only, and spending by out-state-couples traveling to Pennsylvania for the wedding ceremonies would be an incremental boost.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III struck down Pennsylvania’s 1996 law banning same-sex marriage, the last state in the Northeast U.S. with such a ban. The following day, Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, said he would not appeal the decision, and same-sex couples in Pennsylvania began marrying on Friday.