Census Bureau: Recession Forces Demographic Shifts

By PlanetLaundry staff | Jan 18, 2010

Recent data released by the U.S. Census Bureau documents the continuing reduced levels of domestic migration (movement from one state to another) in the United States as a result of the economic recession.

For states that gained the most from domestic migration during the mid-decade boom years, the impact of the migration slowdown has been substantial. Florida, long a major recipient of migrants from other states, saw its domestic migration drop from a gain of 263,000 in 2005 to a loss of 31,000 in 2008. This is the second straight year for domestic out-migration from Florida, and the loss in 2008 is considerably larger than the loss of 9,000 in 2008. Nevada also suffered a domestic migration loss of 4,000 in 2008 after gaining as many as 56,000 domestic migrants as recently as 2005. Arizona’s inflow dropped from 124,000 to only 15,000 in 2008. Even Georgia and North Carolina, which appeared to be weathering the domestic migration downturn, now show sharply reduced levels of domestic migration gain.

Among states that suffered large domestic migration losses during the boom years, the situation is quite different. With the exception of Michigan, each of the five states with the great migration losses in 2005 either lost fewer domestic migrants in 2008 or actually gained some. In New York, the domestic migration loss in 2008 was 98,000 compared to a loss of nearly 233,000 in 2005. Massachusetts enjoyed a modest domestic migration gain of 4,000 in 2008 after losing more than 60,000 domestic migrants as recently as 2005. Ohio and Illinois also experienced less migration loss than they had in 2005.

With domestic migration at record post-war lows and with immigration also reduced, population growth in the United States depends increasingly on the excess of births over deaths. At the national level, natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) accounted for 67 percent of the total population gain in 2008. But there are distinct regional- and state-level differences in how much influence natural increase has on population growth. In the Midwest, natural increase accounted for all the population gains in 2008 – offsetting migration losses. In the Northeast, natural increase accounted for most (88 percent) of the population gain, but it only accounted for 51 percent of the growth in the South and 68 percent of the growth in the West.