More people are moving out of New Jersey than are moving in. The same is true for Illinois and New York. Those three states top the “outbound” list compiled by United Van Lines, the big St. Louis-based moving company that has put together an annual survey of where Americans are moving for the last 37 years. The company analyzed a total of 125,000 moves across the 48 continental states and the District of Columbia in 2013 and came up with a picture of migration patterns across the U.S.
According to Professor Michael Stoll, chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a consultant to United Van Lines who studies American migration, the moves reflect long-term shifts in the U.S. economy and the hit to employment in many states resulting from the slow recovery.
Of the top nine states where more people moved out than moved in, four are in the Northeast: In addition to New Jersey and New York, Connecticut (No. 5) and Massachusetts (No. 8) make the list. The list also reflects Americans’ desire to leave the frigid states in the north for warmer climes. “Over the last 20-30 years there has been a general shift of the population from the Midwest and Northeast to the South and West, which we think of as a move from the frost belt to the sun belt,” says Stoll.
New Jersey has been stuck at the top of the outbound list for three of the past four years. Some 64% more people moved out than moved in. According to Stoll, Great Recession hit the state especially hard, accelerating a longtime shift of manufacturing to the southern states, away from the Northeast. “New Jersey has been reliant for many decades on manufacturing and industry,” he says. “It’s been slow to adapt to new economies where most of the job gains are being found, like technology.” Also because the northern part of the state is tied to the economy of the New York City metropolitan area, housing prices tend to run high in response to demand. Income and property taxes are also high in the state, though Stoll says it’s not clear that taxes prompt people to move, since low-income-tax states typically have higher property taxes and higher sales tax.
I’m not surprised that people are leaving New York. The average rental price in the city for a one-bedroom, excluding Staten Island, is $3,000, according to a recent Daily News report, more than three times the national average of $1,100. Despite the post-recession recovery of the financial industry and the tech jobs created by Silicon Alley, it’s still a stretch for many people to afford their rent, though of course Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to change all that. I like the new mayor but I’m not holding my breath.
Illinois, No. 2 on the list, with 61% more people moving out than in, has a depressing story to tell. Stoll says that over time the state has lost a third of its manufacturing jobs and a quarter of its jobs in construction, and a significant proportion of its unemployed have been out of work for the long term, so the real employment rate there is much higher than the relatively high official figure of 8.9% rate suggests. The Labor Department stops counting people as unemployed when they have given up looking for work or they take a part-time job that doesn’t pay the rent.
A few states on the moving-out list that mystify Stoll: West Virginia at No. 4 (60% more moved out) Utah at No. 6, (58%), and Kentucky at No. 7 (56%). “There are very big question marks about why people are leaving these states,” he says, since housing prices are stable, the economy is diversified and wasn’t hit as hard as in the Northeast and Midwest. “This could be a one-year blip,” he says.
Another surprising state on the top 10: New Mexico, where the climate is good, economic growth has been stable to strong, housing prices are reasonable and there are plenty of great outdoor activities, including skiing and hiking and beautiful topography. But Stoll says that the government sequester likely dealt a blow to New Mexican jobs, since three of the largest federal-fund-reliant national laboratories are there, including Los Alamos. “There has been a tremendous loss in federal employment with the freezing and cutting of the federal budget,” he notes.
Where are all the fleeing people moving? Oregon is at the top of the moving-in list, with 61% more coming than going. Stoll chalks this up in part to folks leaving the more populous neighboring state of California, where housing costs are relatively high. “Oregon is gaining both older and younger people,” he says. Ironically, the data on employment for young people is not great. Unemployment in the state is 7.7%, more than a point higher than the national rate of 6.6%. But in California the rate is even higher at 8.7%. Also people just see Oregon as cool. “It has walkable neighborhoods, public transit, cool places to eat,” he notes. “It’s a big magnet for young people who want that kind of lifestyle.”
What will 2014 bring in terms of migration? Stoll predicts that New Mexico will move off of the out-migration list and despite its perpetual water problems and current drastic drought, more people will move to the Golden State. Though California was beset with rafts of foreclosures, Stoll believes it is on an upward trajectory. “The California economy is recovering fairly quickly,” he says. The cost of living is high but jobs pay well there. Expect it to move up.” I grew up there so I can vouch for the stunning natural beauty, especially around San Francisco, Big Sur, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and I’ve yet to explore many of the national and state parks. If I didn’t have my rent-stabilized apartment on the Upper West Side, a community of wonderful friends, a job I like in the city (though you may have heard, Forbes is moving to Jersey City at year’s end) and my kid in a great public school, I might be calling United Van Lines and planning a move.
