This Is The State The Most People Are Moving To

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 29, 10:53AM EST

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This Is The State The Most People Are Moving To — © Michael Ochs Archives / Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images

Americans have gone through a period of mass migration over the last year and a half. Among the reasons is mortgage rates at a multi decade old, although that is about to change. Many people also grew tired of living in huge metros particularly on the East and West coasts which are characterized by expensive real estate, and otherwise high costs of living. Many inland cities have not only lower real estate prices–they have better quality of life.

The other trigger for this migration is that people can work from home because companies have shuttered their offices because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some companies have chosen to make these arrangements permanent. People have become free to move around the country.

These migrations have a pattern. Some states have become more popular than others based on recent statistics. United Van Lines released it 45th Annual National Movers Study.

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The research methodology is based on households that United Van Lines moved in 2021. It looked at how many of these moves were inbound and outbound by state. The states most people are moving to is where inbound moves outnumber outbound moves by the largest margin.

The study confirms the migration trends some other research has shown. Michael A. Stoll, economist and professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, remarked on the figure, “This new data from United Van Lines is indicative of COVID-19’s impact on domestic migration patterns, with 2021 bringing an acceleration of moves to smaller, midsized towns and cities.”

Notably, of the top 10 states with the most inbound versus outbound moves, six were among the least populated states. There were Vermont, South Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho.

These are the 10 states with the most people moving inbound in 2021:

Vermont
South Dakota
South Carolina
West Virginia
Florida
Alabama
Tennessee
Oregon
Idaho
Rhode Island

This Is The State The Most People Are Leaving

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.