Love! Valour! Commerce!

The California marriage equality victory means big bucks for the state economy -- and good news for the budget crisis there. But as Jen Christensen finds out, businesses around the country are raking it in too.

From The Advocate July 1, 2008

When the California supreme court ruled in favor of marriage equality, wedding bells went off in many people’s heads. But many others heard the sound of the cash register or the credit card machine as they contemplated the financial windfall in store for the state. As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at a San Francisco event May 20, “I hope that California’s economy is booming because everyone is going to come here and get married!”

The financial boost couldn’t come at a better time, given the state’s growing budget deficit -- $17.2 billion at press time -- which forced Schwarzenegger to declare a fiscal emergency earlier this year. “Every bit of money helps,” says Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts who coauthored a 2004 Williams Institute study assessing the economic impact of same-sex marriage in California. Its conclusion? An annual net gain for the state budget of about $30 million, based on consumer spending of at least $85 million. And that number is four years old. “Weddings haven’t gotten any cheaper since then,” she says.

According to Badgett, Massachusetts saw an estimated injection of $102 million into the economy in the first 18 months after same-sex marriage was legalized -- which doesn’t include every cost. “No one tracks the economic boost when your great-aunt in Iowa sends you a wedding gift,” she says.

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