I cannot believe what I am reading! Refusals for settlement visas up by 10% in 12 months!!
And the amount of husbands granted UK spouse visas went from 18k in 2009 to 4k in 2015!!
Deary me.
Hang on, are you looking at the correct statistics?
The spousal visa statistics don't differentiate between Husbands and Wives - they just lump them all into the 'Family' category.
The total number of spousal visas issued in 2009 (across the world) was 38,242, with 2,432 granted from the US.
The total number of spousal visas issued in 2015 (across the world) was 38,119 with 1,639 from the US.
I think you're looking at ILR applications for settlement made inside the UK - which has decreased from 19,872 in 2009 to 1,535 in 2016.
However, the reason for that is because in 2012, the time it takes to gain ILR increased from 2 years to 5 years... which means that no one with a spousal visa granted since July 2012 will qualify to apply for ILR as a Husband or Wife until July 2017.
The reason for the drastic drop in ILR visas granted between 2009 and 2015 is simply because everyone who qualifies for it has already applied, and no one new has been able to qualify for it yet.
So, that means that none of the 470,000 people who have been granted spousal visas since 2012 can qualify to apply for settlement yet... and therefore they won't be included in the 'settlement' tables.
The tables you should be looking at for spousal visas are in section 2: Visas, Volumes 1-4:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/list-of-tables#visasTotal approvals and refusals stats are in Volume 1, work visas are volume 2, family visas (spousal visas) and student visas are in volume 3 and EEA visas are in Volume 4.