Editors at Issues and Insights ponder America’s migration trends.
When U-Haul released its latest “Growth Index” this week, it made us wonder if blue states will ever get a clue.
Once again, the index found a strong migration out of blue states and into red states.
“Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee follow Texas as prime destinations. It’s the same top five from 2024 and 2023, although in a different order,” the company said.
The biggest losers: California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.
Of the top 10 growth states, nine voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 and seven currently have Republican governors.
At the other end of the spectrum, nine of the 10 at the bottom of the ranking have Democratic governors, and seven of them voted for Kamala Harris.
U-Haul bases its index on more than 2.5 million one-way truck rentals each year, which makes it an excellent gauge of household migration, since these largely represent people moving themselves.
This is not a new trend. It’s been happening for years as businesses and families pick up and move away from the warmth of collectivism and toward the frigidity of rugged individualism.
Or, more accurately, businesses and families are moving from big government states that have high taxes, onerous regulations, lousy schools, and high crime, into those that are more business and family friendly, safer, and more affordable.
From 2012 to 2022, California lost more than 1.6 million people to net domestic migration; New York almost 1.8 million; Illinois nearly 900,000, according to Unleash Prosperity’s “Vote With Your Feet” analysis of IRS data.
And with these millions of people went billions of tax dollars. Over those years, for example, California lost more than $102 billion in taxable income as people fled the state: New York lost $111 billion, Illinois $63 billion.
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