In South Dakota, we pride ourselves on having a certain sense of stability that doesn't seem to exist in large portions of the country.

But apparently that doesn't extend to our most meaningful relationships.

BestLife, using figures from the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, is reporting that the Mount Rushmore State has the second-highest divorce rate in America.

  1. Arkansas - 13 percent
  2. South Dakota - 12.1 percent
  3. Oklahoma - 10.8 percent
  4. Kentucky - 10.5 percent
  5. Oregon - 10.1 percent
  6. Indiana - 9.9 percent
  7. Alabama - 9.8 percent
  8. West Virginia - 9.8 percent
  9. Nevada - 9.6 percent
  10. Washington - 9.6 percent

Only three states have a divorce rate of less than five percent: Delaware (2.8%), North Dakota (4.7%), and Rhode Island (4.9%).

There is some good news though.

Overall, both the country and the state's divorce rates are down over the past decade. In 2008, the national divorce rate was 10.5 percent, while in South Dakota in 2018, the fewest number of divorces were reported over a 14-year period.

By the way, the summer months claim the most marriages in South Dakota, with double-digit percentages of filings in June (14.6% of yearly total), July (10.6%), August (14.2%), and September 14.5%). Even October gets in on the act with 10.2 percent of the annual divorce filings.

One factor driving divorces in 2020 is the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

Bloomberg Businessweek says China has experienced record-high divorce filings in the last month, while in Turkey, a lawyer reported four times the amount of divorce filings since the beginning of that nation's lockdown.

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