Is “Covid Flight” Real? Moving Data Says, Maybe

Photo by Quintin Gellar from Pexels

United van lines migration Numbers Show the Pandemic’s effect on changing population distributions is uncertain

Let’s not count our eggs until they’ve at least moved out of their nests. 

Earlier this month, St. Louis-based United Van Lines released its 45th Annual National Movers Study. The moving giant regularly releases state-to-state migration patterns for the lower 48 contiguous U.S. states. In 2021, Vermont led the county with a 74% inbound migration. In terms of outbound migration, 71% of New Jerseyians left that state. 

Yellow states showed net move-outs Blue states showed net move-ins. Covid was seen as the driver. But other factors were as important.

Covid-19 was positioned as the main driver for 2021’s migration trends. People left denser-populated Northeast, for the wide open spaces of Vermont, South Dakota and South Carolina. Being closer to family was seen as another motivation. 

But moving, and movement, is never that simple. 

Closer study of American migration patterns tell a subtler story: Certainly urban-dominated states like New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut showed remarkably high outbound migration in 2021. But they also showed the same high outbound migrations trends in 2011, 2001, 1991 and 1981, for that matter. 

In fact, starting all the way back in 1977, when United Van Lines started collecting migration data, the northeast has featured consistently high outbound migration patterns. Covid has changed nothing, at least statistically.

Migration data indicates that Americans have consistently migrated out of the northeast since the late 1970’s. A pandemic has changed nothing, at least statistically.

Neighborhood Move

Breaking such net migration patterns down into smaller, so-called metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, reveals moving is all about one’s neighborhood. In 2021, New York’s Nassau-Suffolk county led the nation in net exits, followed by Hagerstown, Md., and Santa Cruz, Calif. Inbound migration was absolutely dominated by Medford-Ashland, Ore., Punta Gorda, Fla., and Wilmington, N.C. All three showed inbound migration rates of 80% or higher. 

Medford might be lovely and close to Oregon’s wine country, but it also features some of the highest tax rates in the U.S. and among the highest number of rainy or snowy days in the lower 48 states. 

Why then, do Americans move exactly where they move? United Van Lines does release some motivational themes: People move to be closer to family, for their jobs, to lower their cost of living and for health reasons and the climate. High taxes probably play a role, as do tighter regulations and hostile or expensive labor markets. 

But is there one factor – or even a single group of factors – that the United Van Lines data can reliably say drives moving across the U.S? It is far too early to say what effect the pandemic has had on American migration patterns. Any sort of population analysis must be based on a careful study of a particular population in a specific area. 

In America, migration is like politics. It’s all personal and local.