Americans are “voting with their feet,” saying goodbye to staggering taxes, high living costs and poor job prospects in pro-democracy areas in favor of better deals in red states, experts told .
Recent data from the US Census Bureau shows how states like New York, Illinois and Hawaii saw their populations shrink between 2021 and 2022, while Florida, Texas, Montana and South Dakota saw large population increases.
A similar pattern is playing out at the county level. Arizona’s Maricopa County was the fastest growing in the US, adding 56,831 residents in 2022, a 1.3 percent increase from 2021.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County, California recorded a loss of 90,704 people.
Mark Perry, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank, said the overall population is migrating from Democrat-run states to the mostly Republican-run boomtowns in the south and west of the country.
America’s overall population migration has been from liberal-minded states to mostly boomtowns in the south and west of the country
America is on the move: often away from inner-city deprivation, like this makeshift camp for the homeless in San Francisco, California
A serene scene of a resident in a hammock overlooking the growing skyline of Saint Petersburg, Florida, one of America’s fastest growing states
“Americans are moving from blue states that are economically stagnant, from fiscally unhealthy states with higher tax burdens and unfriendly business climates with higher energy and housing costs and fewer economic and job opportunities,” Perry said.
They are opting for “fiscally sound red states that are economically more vibrant, dynamic, and business-friendly, with lower tax and regulatory burdens, lower energy and housing costs, and more business and employment opportunities.”
The five counties that lost the most residents are all in high-tax states, namely California, Illinois and New York. They were also plagued by homelessness, drug use, and high rents and costs of living.
California is the epicenter of America’s homelessness crisis. About a third of the total homeless in the US – 171,521 people – live in California, and Los Angeles is home to about 65,000 of them.
In contrast, the counties with the largest influx of people were Arizona, Texas and Florida, where taxes are significantly lower. Destination areas tend to have more affordable housing and fewer problems such as crime and vagrancy.
According to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit political group, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Nevada are particularly attractive to newcomers because they don’t levy taxes on workers’ wages.
On the other end, California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon are losing people because of their double-digit income tax rates that wage earners have to pay on top of their federal and local taxes.
People are also moving to cope with the rising cost of living – and the biggest expense for most people is rent.
According to RentCafe, a provider of housing listings, the cheapest states in the US are Oklahoma, where the average renter spends $957 per month, Arkansas ($987 per month) and North Dakota ($1,011 per month).
America’s most expensive states to rent an apartment are Massachusetts ($2,632 per month), New York ($2,552 per month) and California ($2,506 per month) – states that are seeing population declines.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is shrinking as residents relocate from a city haunted by scenes like this one of homelessness and street drug abuse
Meanwhile, parts of the south and west are steadily increasing in population. Pictured: construction work in fast-growing downtown Saint Petersburg, Florida
Some Americans relocate for political reasons.
Republican-run states tend to be more socially conservative, which appeals to people who share these values and want to live in an area that restricts abortion and makes firearm ownership easier.
America’s internal migration trends could affect the outcome of future elections. Electoral boundaries are constantly being redrawn as the population changes.
Texas, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon received electoral college votes as a result of the 2020 census.
Meanwhile, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia lost voting rights.
Some of America’s fastest growing counties are in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.
Newcomers to these areas may appreciate the warmer climes, but may not be aware that they have moved to areas affected by drought, dwindling water supplies and other climate change impacts.
Population shifts are caused by migration, both within the US and due to arrivals from overseas. It also depends on how many babies are born, how many people die and how long they live.
William Frey, a population expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington DC-based think tank, said the exodus from major cities that began at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic could reverse.
Philadelphia, St. Louis and Pittsburgh continue to experience population declines, Frey told .
A long line of people is waiting for summer jobs in New York City. The high cost of living and above-average taxes make many people think twice about living in the Big Apple
A homeless man in his tent overlooking the river in Portland, Oregon, where residents’ complaints include vagrancy, crime and drugs
About a third of the entire US homeless population – 171,521 people – lives in California. This includes more than half of the country’s vulnerable homeless, 115,491 people.
“But in many of the major metros that have suffered large declines — particularly Manhattan and San Francisco — the new data shows that last year’s sharp declines were a blip in the main year of the pandemic,” he added.
When the latest numbers were released late last month, the US Census Bureau noted counties with large colleges and universities that have been hollowed out in the pandemic coming back to life.
Whitman County in southeast Washington, where Washington State University is located, saw a 9.6 percent population decline between 2020 and 2021 at the start of the pandemic.
However, it rebounded last year with a 10.1 percent increase in population as students returned to the campus that dominates the city of Pullman.
Massachusetts, a high-tax Democrat-led state that has been losing people in recent years, could face a “brain drain” in the coming years as educated workers flee the state’s high cost of living and progressive policies, researchers have found .
A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll this month found that four in 10 Massachusetts residents had considered moving out of the state in the past year, and more than half of Republican-voting residents thought so.
“Massachusetts residents continue to consider moving out of the state, with the main concern being the high cost of living,” said political science professor Ray La Raja, a co-director of the survey.
“In addition, younger and more educated people are more likely to think about leaving the state, groups that the state cannot lose for its future.”