CENSUS BUREAU: National Mover Rate Increases to 12% in 2012 After Record Low in 2011

The Census Bureau's state-to-state migration flow tables with 2011 American Community Survey estimates revealed that the most common state-to-state moves in 2011 were:

New York to Florida: 59,288 movers
California to Texas: 58,992
California to Arizona: 49,635
Florida to Georgia: 42,666
New Jersey to New York: 41,450
New York to New Jersey: 40,815
California to Nevada: 40,114
Georgia to Florida: 38,658
California to Washington: 38,421
Texas to California: 37,087

“The overall mover rate for the nation has increased since a record low. However, compared to previous years, mobility is still low for even our most mobile age group (18 to 29 year olds),” said Alison Fields, chief of the Census Bureau's Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch. “The statistics on migration come from two different surveys that, taken together, allow a clear and detailed picture of the movement of people in the U.S.”

Among the 11.8 million intercounty movers — people who moved to another county, either within the same state or to a different state — the most common distance moved was less than 50 miles, with 40.2 percent. Therefore, even though they moved to a different county, the largest percentage did not move far from their previous place of residence.

This information comes from Geographical Mobility: 2012, a collection of national- and regional-level tables from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey. The tables describe the movement of people in the United States, including type of move, why they moved, distance moved and characteristics of those who moved one year earlier.


According to the 2005-2010 Current Population Survey Geographical Mobility tables, areas within metropolitan areas, defined as either principal cities or suburbs, had different domestic migration patterns. Between 2005 and 2010, 15.4 million people moved out of principal cities while 11.0 million moved in — a decrease of 4.4 million movers. Suburbs had 17.9 million move in and 9.2 million move out — an increase of 8.8 million movers.

While California lost residents to Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and other states, the Census Bureau noted that 468,428 residents of other states moved to California during the year, with the most numerous domestic immigrants coming from Texas (37,387), Washington (36,481), Nevada (36,159), Arizona (35,650), New York (25,269) and Florida (22,094).

The Census Bureau calculated that 562,343 Californians moved to other states during 2011 with the most popular destinations being Texas (58,992), Arizona (49,635), Nevada (40,114), Washington (38,421), Oregon (34,214), New York (25,761), Colorado (23,234) and Florida (22,420).


Finally, the Census Bureau tallied 269,772 persons who moved to California from outside the 50 states, almost all of whom came from foreign countries, but with relative handfuls from Puerto Rico (1,344) and islands under U.S. control (2,817).