MASS Migration
Between 2019 and 2020, millions of Americans were on the move. In this project we look at where these people moved to and from. Using the IRS Statistics of Income Division Migration data, as well as Census and voting data, we explore the migration patterns of Massachusetts residents, focusing on Suffolk County; where they went, both in and out of state, and how Massachusetts compares to other states.
Americans don’t tend to move far, with 55% of movers from this period staying within their home state, or moving to a directly neighboring one. When people did go further, Florida and Texas were the top 2 states they chose to move to, accounting for over 17% of total out of state moves. Even though California welcomed the third largest number of new residents, it was the largest net exporter, as well as having the largest absolute exodus of any state. New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey round off the top 5 list of net exporters.
During this period, Massachusetts saw almost 150,000 residents leaving the state.
Where did those folks go? They went to every state in the union as well as leaving the country entirely but almost 50% went to only 5 other states. The big winner was the northern neighbor, New Hampshire, with over 20K people heading north to the Granite State. Next up is Florida; much less densely populated and the only state in the top 5 that went for Trump in 2020.
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These two states alone accounted for just over 26% of all those who left Massachusetts.
Although a net exporter, California pulled in a lot of former MA residents despite having the highest median house value. New York and Rhode Island, both also border states, round out the top 5 with only the latter having higher population density than MA.
At the other end of the spectrum, fewer than 100 people each moved to either North Dakota or Wyoming.
Now we move on to look at in-state moves with a focus on Suffolk County.
Bostonians also kept it local, with 92% of in-state movers relocating to a neighboring county. Almost 40% moved to Middlesex County alone, making it the primary in-state destination. 64% of those moving out of Suffolk stayed in Massachusetts, and while some went as far west as Berkshire County or as far south as Nantucket County, nobody from Suffolk moved to Worcester County.
At the end of the day, 23 thousand movers from Suffolk did leave the state, but we’ve already seen where they went.
Sources and more info can be found at massmigration.info
This project was produced by John Duncan, David D’Antonio and Sean Snyder for E79 — The Art and Design of Information with Zona Kostić and Rob Dotson
