Report Shows Millennials Getting the Heck Out of Blue States—When They Can Afford To

Millennials – those born between between 1982 and 2000—comprise the largest American generation, and they’re approaching middle age. HireAHelper, a company that assists people in finding moving services, released its Millennial Migration study in March that revealed that fewer in the age group are relocating than in the past, but when they are, they’re ditching blue states like California, Illinois, and New York for greener pastures in red states like Texas, Florida, and Montana.

The first question HireAHelper asked was, why are Millennials mostly staying put? The reasons vary, but with out-of-control mortgage rates caused by Bidenflation, many of them can’t buy a house no matter where they live, so why move?

Housing Unaffordability

On average, aspiring first-time buyers can’t afford home ownership, due to the almost complete unaffordability of homes across the United States.

And the millennials who can afford a home are unlikely to buy (and move into) a newer home because current mortgage rates are two to three times higher than in the previous decade.

They’re also deep in debt as a generation, so that cuts down their maneuverability.

Another factor that’s holding millennials back from moving is finances. Saddled with an enormous amount of debt (a lot of it from student loans), many millennials likely find themselves unable to afford to move, with many living paycheck to paycheck.

In last year’s HireAHelper moving survey, 58% of respondents (and 60% of millennials) who wanted to move said they had to stay put because they couldn’t afford to move. [Bolding theirs.]

When they are able to gather the funds to move, however, Texas and Montana are the hands-down population winners:

Top States for Millennials

Looking at the U.S. states, Texas attracted the highest number of millennials moving out of their home state.

Last year, the Lone Star state welcomed almost 400,000 millennials as new residents, which is nearly 10% of all the cross-state moves made by millennials in 2023!

In terms of net moves (i.e., the ratio of those moving in, versus those moving out), the undisputed leader is Montana, where 95% more millennials moved in than left. Oklahoma meanwhile saw a plus 53% net.

Not all the states where millennials relocated to were red, however. Blue states seeing net gains were Connecticut (+56%), Maine (+54%), and New Hampshire (47%).

The biggest losers in this moving game were not hard to predict:

Deep blue locations, however, like New York, California, Massachusetts and Illinois saw the highest negative migration rate, with 52%, 39%, 28% and 25% more millennials leaving than moving in, respectively.

Gee, wonder why?

However, Miami and Arkansas also saw net outflows, which wasn’t necessarily as obvious a prediction:

Washington, D.C.; Iowa; Louisiana; Wisconsin; North Dakota; and Arkansas also saw more millennials leave than come in.

At the metropolitan level, Tampa, Florida, topped the list of desirable locations, with nearly twice as many people moving there than leaving. Las Vegas and Austin, Texas, were also two top locations for positive millennial net migration.

More millenials fled New York; San Jose, California; Los Angeles; Detroit; San Francisco; El Paso, Texas; Milwaukee; Chicago; and Miami metro areas than came in, the study found.

Millennials arguably face a tougher economic playing field than their immediate forebears, and as the survey notes, they’re “grappling with the fact that they may not be better off than the generations before them.” Sixteen percent of them still live at their parents’ home.

Many will argue that it’s because it’s a “me” generation where too many would rather focus more on their “identity” than their work ethic—and there’s plenty of evidence of that.

That being said, Biden’s policies certainly aren’t helping them, between soaring inflation, a sense of lawlessness and crippling interest rates. When such a huge percentage of them want to move elsewhere but can’t even afford it, that’s a sad reflection on where we are as a society.

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