The headline for this article is California Loses Hundreds of Thousands of Residents in 2020:
Link to ArticleBut it sounded far-fetched to me, so I checked the actual press release:
We didn’t lose ‘hundreds of thousands’, which would be at least 200,000 by definition.
We did add 156,600 net new babies – more people to inherit homes later!
The population of San Diego is what matters to us. Further down in the press release they said that the San Diego gain ‘depended mainly on natural increase as the source of population growth’. It means older people are leaving, and they are being replaced by the kids!
Link to CA Press Release
Buzz: One-in-four Californians told pollsters last month that the state’s pandemic-challenged job market means they’re seriously thinking about leaving for another part of the nation.
Source: Public Policy Institute of California surveyed 2,325 adults — including an intentional oversampling of low-income folks making less than $40,000 — in the three weeks after the November election.
The Trend
The survey found 26% of Californians “seriously considering” moving to another state due to a lack of good-paying jobs. Another 9% are pondering relocation to elsewhere in the state.
Note that it’s one thing to tell a pollster you’re going to do something. It’s another to actually do it.
Consider U.S. Census Bureau stats that show between 2017 and 2019, 1.3 million Californians moved to other states — an outflow equal to roughly 3% of the state’s almost 40 million residents. Oh, and last year departures from California fell for the first time in eight years.
The Dissection
The relocation sentiment is a noteworthy concern to the state’s economy. Many businesses are in trouble because of restrictions designed to stem the pandemic’s spread. And what would significant numbers of exits do to the state’s housing markets, which have been curiously robust thanks to low mortgage rates and buyers wanting more living space?
The poll found the typical person who was thinking hard about bolting from California was more likely to be male, White, under 34, and without a college degree.
These moving thoughts were found to be relatively similar at all income levels, even in the renters vs. homeowners breakdown. But job security was big — 33% of part-time workers pondered relocation.
And it’s no surprise there’s political polarization in these poll results: 41% of Republicans — the minority party statewide — are contemplating an exit vs. 35% of the independents and 16% of Democrats.
The geographic breakdown of moves follows those political leanings. Exits were popular thinking in conservative hotbeds such as the Inland Empire where 33% seriously consider another state; 27% in the Central Valley; and 26% in Orange and San Diego counties. In the more liberal big cities, departures were pondered by 23% of Los Angeles residents and 22% in the Bay Area.
Quotable
“It’s not a measurement of actual behavior but there’s a sense sense of frustration with the job market,” says PPIC CEO Mark Baldassare of the 26% of Californians with relocation wishes — on par with 27% of those polled unhappy with the availability of good-paying jobs.
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/12/16/bubble-watch-poll-says-26-of-californians-seriously-thinking-of-leaving/
Well, the headline is from the OC Register.
No bias at all in their reporting…….(snark off).
Yes, the OCR guy is a perma-bear on real estate. He hasn’t seen anything good about housing in decades….if ever.
The original article (with faulty headline) was from Fox News.
Time and again I hear contemporaries complaining about how liberal CA is and that they are leaving for a red state. In almost every case the truth is they have been living off of refinances to live a lifestyle they never truly earned and have mortaged themselves to the hilt. Its a convenient excuse for their personal failures. I always chuckle to myself and wish them well in TX, AZ or whatever place they are exiling themselves to.
Do you have a way of searching the public record for the authors mortgage amount. I’d bet dollars to donuts he a serial refinancer and refied out $500K to $1M just like the rest of those that sing that song
This same theme get recycled and published a couple times a year going back at least 50 years that I recall. It’s just dumb filler from lazy writers for biased readers, which is fine. Since 1900, CA has never had a negative population year, unlike perhaps any other state in the nation.
Well, when Tesla and other prominent people leave, and they state their reasoning, shouldn’t we take notice? Seems odd that we would just brush aside the many problems in the state.