Here is a chart, via the New York Times, showing the US states with the greatest net migration in 2023:

This is calculated by looking at the difference between arrivals and departures for each state, but only within the US. And for the first year since 2014, Texas has overtaken Florida, though admittedly not by much.

I saw some discussion about this on Twitter, but I think it's important to point out that this is only domestic migration. Between 2023 and 2024, the US grew by some 3.3 million people. And 84% of this growth (about 2.8 million people) came from international migration.

So let's include those numbers (data via the US Census Bureau).

Here are the most populous states:

Here are the top 10 states by numeric growth:

And here are the top 10 states by percent growth:

When looking at overall numeric growth, Texas and Florida still land at the top. (They're also among the highest in terms of percentage growth, despite already being the second and third most populous states.) But now states like California and New York show up on the top 10 list, which speaks to their ability to draw people from around the world.

None of this is particularly surprising, but I still think it's valuable to see the numbers.

Cover photo by Courtney Rose on Unsplash

Here in Canada, there is often a belief that Americans tend to be more mobile than Canadians. Don't like the cold weather? Just move south. Taxes too high? Just move south. Housing too expensive? Just move south.

But just how mobile is mobile? A new study by the US Census Bureau and Harvard University found that by age 26, more than 2/3 of young adults in the US actually just live where they grew up, with 80% living within 100 miles, and 90% living within 500 miles.

Migration distances were also found to be impacted by both race and parental income (though these two things likely exhibit a relationship on their own). If you are a young white or Asian adult, the "radius of economic opportunity" tends to grow and you're more likely to live further away from where you grew up.

The most popular destinations overall are New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and Denver (in this order). And while New York and Los Angeles remain at the top regardless of who you are, San Antonio and Phoenix are top destinations for Hispanics, and San Francisco is a top destination for Asians.

Regardless, home appears to be a pretty sticky place.

But what about Canadians? Are we less mobile? Looking at net domestic migration rates, Canada saw 254,143 interprovincial migrants between 2018-2019, whereas the US saw just over a million between 2020-2021. So on a per capita basis, Canada's rate is actually higher.

Statistics Canada also estimated earlier this year that as of July 1, 2016, somewhere around 4 million Canadians were living abroad -- or about 11% of citizens. This is a much higher percentage compared to Americans.

Of those living abroad, roughly half are believed to have received their citizenship through descent, meaning they were born abroad to Canadian parents. About 1/3 are Canadian citizens by birth. And about 15% are naturalized citizens.

So it turns out that Canadians are in fact pretty mobile. We also seem to like going further afield.

Back in April, the US Census Bureau started running weekly surveys in order to try and assess how COVID-19 was impacting people's lives. They call this the "Household Pulse Survey." They're now up to week 12, with the latest data running up until July 21, 2020. Here's some housing data that I think many of you will find interesting:

• The July 1, 2019 population estimate for the US was 328,239,523, of which about 77.7% are persons 18 years or older.

• One of the things that the survey looked at was the total population 18 years or older living in owner-occupied and renter-occupied housing. About 148 million people (~60%) identified as living in the former, about 78 million (~29%) identified as living in the latter, and about 27 million people (~11%) did not report their tenure. This seems to jibe with point number one and the overall home ownership rate in the US.

• For the owners, 1/3 reported to own their home "free and clear" of a mortgage and about 58% said that they made last month's mortgage payment. So about 91% of owners were seemingly okay in June. The remaining ~9% were people who either got a mortgage payment deferral, or simply didn't pay. About 0.5% did not report.

• For the renters, about 5% reported to be living in a home with free rent and about 75% said that they made last month's rental payment. Over 18% said that they missed last month's rent and just over 2% said that they had their rent deferred. The remaining 1% or so are people who simply did not report.

• Combining both tenures, it looks like about 12.5% to 13% of respondents had a bit of a problem paying their housing costs last month. (I'm giving a range, because presumably the "did not report" crowd could go either way.) I don't know about you, but this number doesn't seem all that shocking to me.

If you would like to download a copy of all of the survey results, click here.