America’s census bureau looked at how many people relocated into each state from another state, compared to the total number of people making a move in that state. The state with the lowest “inmigration” ratio? California.
From 2021 through 2022, “California’s inmigration rate was 11.1% last year…” reports SFGate. “For comparison, nearby Oregon had a inmigration rate of 21%.”
But the census bureau cautions that California — America’s most populous state — “also had a relatively large base of movers overall” — over 4 million — which could help explain its low ratio in several statistics. SFGate reports:
California’s outmigration rate — defined as the “number of people moving out of a state as a share of that state’s total number of movers” — was also below the national migration average. Texas had the country’s lowest outmigration rate, at 11.7%, according to the Census Bureau’s analysis.
California and Texas are America’s two most populous states. (The total population of California is 39 million — roughly 11.7% of America’s population — while Texas has another 30 million. Oregon’s population is just 4,240,137.) Interestingly, most people moving to California arrived from… Texas. (44,279). At the same time, 102,422 people moved from California to Texas, with another 74,157 moving from California to Arizona.
New York state also lost 91,201 people to Florida, and another 75,103 people to New Jersey.
The second-highest number of people (31,225) who moved from a different state to California came from New York…
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, California saw a net loss of 340,000 residents between 2021 and 2022, with most of the people who left heading to Florida or Arizona.