West Coast Exodus: Why people are fleeing to this red state sanctuary
Idaho's population is growing, thanks to a surge of California, Washington and Oregon residents moving in. Here's what new Idaho residents say drove them out of their previous homes.
A recent survey showed that people are seeking to leave California in droves, while North and South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee are attracting more potential movers.
ConsumerAffairs released a survey on May 20 finding that a high cost of living was driving people to want to leave their home state for states with a lower cost of living, with California ranked at the bottom in terms of net loss of migration.
The firm analyzed data from 143,506 of their users who expressed an interest in moving from January 2023 to March 2024 to calculate the net migration change in an attempt to model migration trends for 2024.
"ConsumerAffairs' data shows a continued migration out of California and toward the Carolinas, Florida and Tennessee," ConsumerAffairs Data Editor Jill Castellano told Fox News Digital on Friday.
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The Golden State ranked last, according to ConsumerAffairs. (Getty Images)
"A lot of factors contribute to these patterns, but the ongoing high cost of living in California -- especially high home and rental prices -- are no doubt contributing factors. Addressing the state's climbing living and housing costs would be one way for California to appeal to people looking for a place to move," she said.
The Golden State saw over 17,824 people wanting to move out of the state while a little over 7,000 were thinking of moving in, a net of −10,453, the survey data showed.
"I’d say if you’re optimizing for kombucha consumed per hour a day, go to LA," Michael Basch, who previously lived in New York and California, told ConsumerAffairs.
Basch, the founder of a venture capital firm based in Oklahoma, explained further to the research firm, "I think if you want to start a family, if you want quality of life, if you want a nice community or if you want to make a difference, those are all things I think we [Oklahoma] win over those markets."
Texas experienced the largest population growth in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images)
New York accompanied California at the bottom of the ranking system, ConsumerAffairs reported. Their chart showed that nearly 6,000 people were thinking of leaving the Empire State while just over 3,800 were wanting to move in, a −2,190 in net migration.
All 10 of the bottom states were blue states, while the top 10 were all red or purple states (including Georgia and Arizona).
North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Texas ranked 1 through 5 in net desirability for potential movers.
Business experts told Fox News that people are continuing to flee blue states over high-taxes, 'oppressive' policies, homelessness and crime. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins/iStock/Getty)
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Fox News Digital reported in 2023 on U.S. Census Bureau data showing red states seeing an influx in migration, with Texas experiencing the largest population growth among them.
Blue states experienced a fall in population between 2022 and 2023, including California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania
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