The fastest growing US states as people flee New York and DC

Americans are packing up and moving away from cities like New York City and Washington DC for greener pastures in states like Texas and Idaho as the Covid-19 pandemic has driven migration away from the heavily concentrated northeast, according to new US Census Bureau figures.

In the data released this week, Washington DC saw the largest by per cent population decrease, losing nearly 3 per cent of its total population primarily to domestic migration. New York state saw the largest cumulative population decrease in 2020, losing more than 350,000 people to domestic migration and seeing a net drop of nearly 320,000 over the course of April 2020 to April 2021.

In contrast, the American south was the only region to see positive net migration in 2020. Texas saw more than 170,000 people move to the state from elsewhere inside the US in 2020, contributing to the largest annual and cumulative population gains of any state.

Idaho was the fastest-growing state, and saw its population grow 3.4 per cent between April 2020 - April 2021. Again, the main driver of the gain was domestic migration.

Many factors, including cost of living, are likely to blame. New York City and Washington DC have some of the highest rent and cost of living levels in the country. A nerdwallet.com cost of living index calculator estimates that the cost of living in New York City is 130 per cent higher than it is in Dallas, Texas.

Washington DC has seen rent prices dip amid the Covid-19 pandemic but the cost of living index of Washington DC and the surrounding area is still estimated to be 40-60 per cent higher than the Dallas area. Idaho was a similarly cheaper place to live than both New York and the Washington DC area.

The cost of living in major metropolitan areas was not the only reason driving migration; the Covid-19 pandemic drove many out of cities for a variety of reasons including the wide expansion of tele-work, which has allowed some Americans to work for companies headquartered in major cities while living closer to family or locations desirable for other reasons.

A study in late 2020 by Upwork.com indicated that as many as 14 million Americans could end up migrating for reasons related to the expansion of work from home practices.

As a central hub for the US energy sector, Texas in particular also has a strong job market, leading to some moving to seek work. The state had an unemployment rate of about 4.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2021.

One other noticeable trend in the census data was the natural population decrease occurring in the Rust Belt; both Pennsylvania and Ohio were among the three states where the birth rate was most severely outweighed by the death rate. Pennsylvania saw a natural loss of more than 30,000 from its net population total as a result of natural population change, ranking behind only Florida in that metric.