433,402 new Californians: Which states did they come from?

“Numerology” tries to find reality within various measurements of economic and real estate trends.

Buzz: In 2021, 433,402 people moved to California from other states. It was the third-largest inflow behind Florida and Texas.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the latest state-to-state migration data from the Census Bureau.

Fuzzy math: So, where did these new Golden Staters come from?

Topline

Let’s start with the raw inflow data.

No. 1 was Washington state, which lost 40,456 residents to California. Texas followed at 33,577, then New York at 32,723, Arizona at 27,449, and Florida at 24,692. The fewest interstate relocations were from Maine at 248, then West Virginia at 707, Vermont at 778, Delaware at 1,012 and New Hampshire at 1,034.

But let’s put those interstate flow of people into perspective tied to their state of departure’s population. For example, what are the odds a state lost a resident to California in 2021?

The District of California topped this ranking at 165-to-1, then Hawaii and Washington at 189-to-1, Oregon at 208-to-1 and Nevada at 210-to-1.

Where was a California move an even longer shot? Maine was 5,485-to-1, then West Virginia (2,500-to-1), Kentucky (2,219-to-1), Tennessee (2,026-to-1), and Alabama (1,841-to-1).

And California’s biggest rivals? Texas ranked No. 25 at 869-to-1 odds while Florida was 26th at 874-to-1.

Next, consider the states where California represented the biggest chunk of 2021 departures. All border the Golden State.

Oregon had 16.1% of its 125,363 departures go to California. Nevada at 16.1% its 92,184 exits. And Arizona was at 15.5% of 176,783.

By the way, Texas was the ninth-largest at 7.5% and Florida was No. 22 at 5.3%.

Bottom line

California had the nation’s worst attraction rate in 2021. Arrivals from across the nation equaled only 1.1% of the state’s 39 million residents.

Next on this unpopularity list was Michigan at 1.4%, then New York at 1.5%, Illinois at 1.6%, and Ohio at 1.6%.

Most attractive, by this math, was D.C. at 8.7%, then Idaho at 5.1%, Hawaii and Vermont at 5%, and North Dakota at 4.9%

Texas was eighth-lowest at 2%. Florida was 23rd best at 3.1%.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

Source: Orange County Register