In times of plenty, relocating for work usually means a better job or a higher standard of living. But in today’s tough economy, many are finding that they just can’t find work or maintain their standard of living where they currently live. It’s especially bad in New York and California, two places where the economy is suffering and the cost of living remains high. Many of these financial refugees are ending up in Texas, a place where the cost of living is low. And many of those that are relocating are in the very lowest income bracket, a further indication that money is their motivation for moving.
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16 Comments so far
leave a commentWhat is the date range for this?
Yeah, interesting info, but missing a few key elements, such as dates and types of jobs.
Date ranges, please
Without dates this is stupid and irrelevant
Not just dates, but what jobs are there in these states. If the jobs were road repair and now all the roads are fixed, a nice green state is about to turn red. How about a map that shows where specific industries are moving so those of us in a state where our current livelihood seems to have dried up can be pointed to an area where there are now new jobs waiting? As it stands, the map just doesn’t say much and the “article” is not even much of a description of the map!
What kind of methodology are you people using? You don’t give any date range, nor do you say whether you accounted for changes in population due to births and deaths, nor do you really explain anything other than where you (supposedly) got the data from.
P.S. There are a lot of people like me who are skeptical about signing up for online money management programs. The casual lack of any explanation of this map really isn’t helping win us over.
To address the concern about dates, the data presented in the map is from the Census Bureau’s 2007 American Community Survey, and applies to net migration for each state in the preceding 1 year period. It does not take into account birth and death rates, as it is not based on population change. @Wes- Thanks for the great suggestion for a new map looking at the movement of industry between states.
Thanks,
Ross.
Florida growth is surprising. Like others have said, would be nice to see more support for figures.
Why is this chart done with total number from each state? Would not come out very balance if you look at the population differences between the states. Seems by percentage of the state moving would be more appropriate.
Hmmmmmm… Aren’t most of the red states on this map typically blue when it comes to election time? Hmmmmm…
This is completely useless for colorblind people. Please change it to make the light to dark scale consistent.
interesting post!
-200k or +200k are we talking DOLLARS or Number of people moving? Sure doesn’t seem like the average income is $200k in Arizona. Is Arizona so green because of Mexicans illegally trespassing here for money?
People are moving to Texas because of rumors about them seceding from the union! Sign me up, secede now!
Surprise surprise, the states with more unions and dominated by progressives are the ones in trouble and bleeding workers. The way California is bleeding people, the only ones left will be Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi, and the Hollywood elite, on a pile of rubble.
I’m not surprised people are moving in droves out of California and most of the Northeastern states. I grew up in rural NC, moved to New Jersey, and later to California ( Bay Area) where I’ve been for 10 years. Yes- the weather and food are great here. But even after the bust a house is still around 500k for anything remotely decent and not in the ghetto. My wife and I make a fairly good income. Quite a bit higher than the media area income in fact. But that said, we would still be putting ourselves at a degree of financial risk I’m not willing to accept if we bought.
We recently took an “exploratory trip” to Austin. Good food ( BBQ!), similar jobs available, and what’s more- its actually affordable. As in 200k or less for s decent house in a nice neighborhood. So the choice is whether to stay here and put a down payment on some overpriced house or move to TX, NC, GA, or some other Southeastern state and just about buy a house outright.
We are in our early 30′s. A lot of people our age I’ve met are making similar choices. If you look at any number of relocation forums they are crammed with people from Northeastern and West Coast states trying to get out of those states as fast as they can. Most are young professionals like us or middle class families with small children.
The bottom line is summed up in the article above. The housing boom elevated home prices to crazy prices, the bust happened, the economy tanked, and everything else has occured that “should” have caused prices to fall back to more reasonable levels. But the fact is that they are still way too high. So the heck with it We’re out of here, and so too are many others. I’d expect this pattern to stay until either home prices fall in the expensive states or prices in the states they’re going to partially catch up, which I doubt they will since there’s simply so much open land in those areas.
Adios Cali!