Study: 14.2% of Americans Have Moved or are Considering a Move Out of Their State Due to Current Events

The Reviews.com Team
The Reviews.com Team
3

The most recent study conducted by the Reviews.com Home Team has found that a noticeable number of Americans have moved or are now considering a move out of their state to due to current events. These include new work-from-home policies offered by their employers, their state’s handling of COVID-19, and local political unrest.

Fast facts:

  • An initial survey of 2,309 US residents found that 14.2% of people have moved or are considering a move due to recent events.
  • Oregon (36.7%), Florida (21.7%), Illinois (21.5%), California (19.9%), and Massachusetts (19.8%) round out the top five states with the most people moving or considering a move.
  • When compared against publicly available data, states like California and New York with high population cities are seeing a year-over-year increase of people moving to less-dense areas.

While the reasons are varied, a noticeable number of people are now expressing interest in leaving their current state.

At the start of COVID-19 where high-density cities were suffering outbreaks, the initial trend of people moving to escape population centers started to reveal itself. Soon following, employers started offering more flexible work-from-home policies allowing their employees the option of working from wherever they felt most comfortable. And recent political unrest seems to have caused a noticeable number of people to feel uncomfortable in their city.

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With that, the Reviews.com Home Team conducted a survey of 2,309 US residents asking them if they have moved or are considering a move due to current events.

Demographically, there were very few notable differences between gender and age brackets when it came to responses. A few variances of 1-3% but nothing statistically significant, leading us to believe that no single demographic feels stronger about moving away than others.

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However, when broken out by state, several noticeable trends revealed themselves, especially a few stand-outs when it came to people in specific locations expressing interest in moving.

Here is the data visualized on a map of the United States (click to expand):

Click to expand
State% Moved or Considering a Move
Oregon36.7%
Florida21.7%
Illinois21.5%
California19.9%
Massachusetts19.8%
Nevada19.0%
Pennsylvania19.0%
Colorado18.6%
Oklahoma18.5%
Wisconsin17.9%
Mississippi17.8%
New York17.5%
Hawaii15.9%
Idaho15.7%
Iowa15.5%
Maryland15.2%
Minnesota15.0%
Utah14.3%
Missouri13.8%
Alabama13.5%
Kentucky13.3%
Arizona12.8%
Texas12.8%
Georgia12.2%
Kansas12.2%
Alaska11.6%
Louisiana11.6%
Ohio11.2%
Michigan10.5%
Tennessee10.2%
Washington10.1%
South Carolina10.0%
Virginia9.8%
Connecticut9.1%
New Jersey9.0%
New Mexico8.6%
North Carolina8.3%
Nebraska7.8%
Arkansas4.9%
Montana4.9%
Indiana4.7%
DelawareN/A
MaineN/A
New HampshireN/A
North DakotaN/A
Rhode IslandN/A
South DakotaN/A
VermontN/A
West VirginiaN/A
WyomingN/A

Oregon, which has seen considerable political unrest the last month, is the state currently seeing the most people responding that they have moved our are planning on moving. Florida and Illinois both also had more than 20% of respondants claim they have moved or are considering a move in the near future.

There were nine states, noted with an N/A, that we were unable to collect significant enough data to designate a response rate for, however, any data collected from those states was included in the national total.

Methodology:

  • The survey collected 2,309 responses from US residents 18 years or older.
  • All responses were anonymous and collected online.
  • 51.6% of responses were female, 48.4% were male.
  • States that did not receive enough responses to warrant statistical relevance were not included in the state-by-state comparison, but the data was included in the national results.