More than 200,000 people left California, on net, between 2018 and 2019 to move elsewhere in the country, the Census Bureau reported Monday, making it the nation’s leader in out-migration.
California was one of only three states to have population losses greater than 100,000. The others were New York at 181,000 and Illinois at 105,000.
The net out-migration was not enough to reduce California’s total population, which stands at about 39 million, but it contributed to an overall slowdown. Last week, the state’s Finance Department reported that the population had grown by just 0.35% over the last year, the lowest since 1900.
California leaders have linked the migration to the state’s shortage of available housing. “Our failure to build enough housing is at the heart of CA’s challenges: It’s exploding housing costs; It’s fueling homelessness & poverty; It’s creating sprawl, increasing traffic, commutes & wildfire risk,” tweeted Democratic California state Sen. Scott Wiener.
“This is another sign of the state’s housing crisis. California’s nearly 40 million residents can appreciate its natural beauty and weather. But when well more than the rule-of-thumb 30% of your paycheck goes to rent for so many, it’s easy to be sour,” the San Diego Union-Tribune editorialized last week in reaction to the Finance Department numbers.
The office of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom stated in a tweet Friday, “The cost of housing is the defining quality-of-life concern for people across this state. That’s why California passed the nation’s strongest statewide renter protection legislation to combat the housing crisis. #CaliforniaForAll.”
