Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the number of people moving out

Texas was the leading source of new residents in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma, according to the 2024 state-to-state migration flows, which tracks where a person lived in the previous year and where they currently live.

Texas, with a population of 31 million, ranks second in terms of population among American states. Between 2020 and 2024, Texas gained 2.1 million people.

“The obvious and basic answer is size,” said Dudley Poston, professor emeritus of sociology at Texas A&M University. “The number of people leaving Texas must be greater than the number of people leaving other states because of the size of the Texas population.”

Other big producers of residents moving to other states include the nation’s other most populous states: California, Florida and New York.

California, the most populous US state with a population of 39 million, provided most of the new residents to western states such as Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Washington. But it was also a major supplier of local residents to Nashville’s home state of Tennessee, which created a pipeline to Southern California’s entertainment industry.

Florida, the third most populous US state with a population of 23 million, dominated the number of new residents in the southeastern states of Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina, as well as Ohio. Florida has gained 1.8 million residents this decade, the second largest population of any state.

Although the size of the Sunshine State played a key role, other factors may also play a role, such as rising real estate and homeowners insurance prices in Florida and more abundant job opportunities for recent college graduates in cities like Atlanta and Charlotte, according to Richard Doty, a demographic researcher at the University of Florida.

“The relocation/retirement option is no longer as affordable as it used to be,” Doty said in an email.

New York was the main source of new residents for Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, while Illinois provided the largest number of new residents to Midwestern neighbors Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

“The states with the highest numbers of out-migration — California, Florida, Texas, New York — are also the states with the largest populations,” said Helen Yu, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center. “This is no coincidence.” “Large populations naturally generate large numbers of both incoming and outgoing immigrants.”

Some migration patterns were no real surprises, such as former Massachusetts residents being the largest source of new Mainers, New Hampshire residents, and Rhode Island and Vermont residents. Former Wisconsin residents made up the largest population of new Minnesotans, and former North Carolinians were the largest source of new South Carolina residents.

In most states in 2024, before the immigration crackdown of the second Trump administration, people from a foreign country were the main source of new residents. Among the exceptions, where international migration was not significant compared to people moving from individual US states, were Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

The Census Bureau will release new population estimates next week that will show how the United States will change in 2025.