Here’s an analysis that shows that Census numbers, on their surface, don’t tell a lot of the story.
In this case, the focus is on state-to-state net migration, which shows which states are actually gaining or losing population over time. Livability’s Matt Carmichael looks at the latest batch of Census data on mobility and migration, and tracks which states are the losers, and which states are the primary beneficiaries of the states that lose movers. Carmichael writes:
So who’s moving where? For this installment, I looked at the latest state-to-state migration data from the U.S. Census Bureau. However I didn’t look at the net migration, I just looked at out-migration. For each state, I determined which state it was losing the most residents to. Again, we’re talking just out-migration so while Arizona might have lost 35,000 residents to California it also gained 57,000 from the sunshine state. But again, just looking at where people go when they leave we find some interesting trends.
Texas, California and Florida are the big winners. Ten states lose the most residents to Texas and six states each lose to California and Florida.
