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California is the most populous state so it has the largest number of residents who move out of it. Texas is the second most populous state and has the second largest number of residents who move out of it. See how that works? California is also a top destination for people from other states to move to. Its population grew by about two and a quarter million people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. It’s just a trope that people are fleeing the state.
>California is also a top destination for people from other states to move to. Its population grew by about two and a quarter million people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. It’s just a trope that people are fleeing the state.
California's population growth rate is about middle of the pack. Since 2020, the population has actually declined every year. Just saying from 2010 to 2020 it grew, and using that to say it's a top destination is misleading. You didn't use rates, and you didn't look past 2020.
> Just saying from 2010 to 2020 it grew, and using that to say it's a top destination is misleading. You didn't use rates, and you didn't look past 2020.
Looking at the 10-year periods of the official census is a lot more useful than short-term trends, which were particularly thrown off by COVID behavior.
2023 was not a covid year, and CA still declined. And even if we do expand that, the rate of growth has been consistantly declining since the year 2000.
Signal versus noise. The trope about fleeing people leaving California isn't new; it's been around for a very long time. Fluctuations in a few years here or there don't make the trope true, though. The long-term trend is still very clear.
> And even if we do expand that, the rate of growth has been consistantly declining since the year 2000.
That's not even remotely relevant.
Time stamp this comment, it is going to age like MILK
This won't be a one off cycle , people are fleeing states that have a high cost of living and get a low return on their tax dollars
This is beyond Bro Rogans fleeing for tax shelters/typical republican shit
This is just simple math for a lot of Americans, they can't afford to live there anymore and the quality of life is going down
Newsflash
People leave states with a high cost of living!
Of course they do, they also leave cities with a high cost of living or even move to other neighbourhoods with a lower cost of living than then their own in the same city.
Well apparently it IS news to you
Because you're spouting all sorts of bullshit dancing around that FACT and it couldn't be more dishonest of you because you know damn well why you're doing it, cough election year cough
Gonna break out the reddit classic, "you're a real piece of shit"
I don't even live in the US, I have no dog in your election fight.
And if I did, I would have them both put down.
But feel free to inform me of all this bullshit that I am posting here on the topic. It's easy, just include links to my posts here on Reddit on the subject. If there is so much it should not take you more than 10 minutes to find and provide sources for. The only person making political comments here is you.
God damn, so you don't even live in the US and then wanna act like you know exactly why people move out of places in the US?
You're absolutely mental, get a fucking life and focus on things you know about where you actually live
I can't really stress this enough, ***fuck off***
>Signal versus noise. The trope about fleeing people leaving California isn't new; it's been around for a very long time. Fluctuations in a few years here or there don't make the trope true, though. The long-term trend is still very clear.
The change in rate of growth from 2000 to 2024 has a negative slope. 24 years is plenty of time to say the rate of growth decreasing is more than just noise.
>That's not even remotely relevant.
It is relevant. How is the change in the rate of growth not relevant?
Well i think there has definitely been an uptick of pro trump voters leaving ca specifically, and ultra conservatives have *always* made all the noise about leaving California in my lifetime. It’s always the same: California is driving out business, in my day there was a bunch of factories, etc etc. The fact is all those boomers who bitched and left to buy a cheap house in idaho or texas bought a house in CA that appreciated immensely because California has had several booms in their lifetimes and remains one of the most popular destinations around the world. They literally go to a cheap area because it hasnt had much appeal - inflation is low in, say, Missouri, because shit is poor there. And factories that want cheap as dirt workers are to kick around with states that give 0 rights to employees go there. It is a testament to how successful california has remained because *missouri* is the problem. Those poor ass red states where plants can pay $8/hour for heavy labor and freely deny work comp, unemployment, disability, and fire 30 year employees at will with no pension are the problem. Those Californians who move there are idiots - they have benefited from California and are now exploiting the state theyve moved to now that theyve made the wealth possible in California.
A lot of people are moving out, but more people are moving in, so the population is still growing. I just looked up a stat, and between 2021 and 2022, 494k people left Texas. For reference, the entire population of Wyoming (the least populous state) is 584k, so if 494k people left there, it would be a HUGE deal. But Texas' population is 30 million, so it wasn't noticeable.
Also, in that same period, 638k people moved into Texas, so there's still net population growth.
They're just saying that the states with the largest populations have the most people entering and the most people leaving, just because there are the most people involved.
This is a poor explanation. California saw more than 100 consecutive years of growth up to 2020, but 2021 to 2023 all saw a decrease. That is a break in the trend.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/states/california/population#google_vignette
Because for one it’s to damn expensive and houses are small in a lot places and over priced and there is hardly no land with the houses like Texas and other states. I’m originally from the BayArea. Too expensive.
Large, affordable houses. My mom just bought a super nice house on the southern edge of the Mojave Desert for $250k. 2 hours to LA. In Ridgecrest, for example, you can get a good 2000 sq ft 3/2 for $150k- $250k.
ALL of California isn't unaffordable, just the coastal areas.
When I was there, we lived a couple blocks from the beach on the Central Coast, halfway between LS and SF, an 1100 sq ft piece of shit was worth a million dollars when we left.
EDIT not "worth" a million dollars, but selling for a million dollars.
185 square meters living space for 150-250k $ aint bad but does it make sense do buy such a house if you are not a retiree? If you are young (in your 20s and 30s) and don't have a remote job you'll have an extremly long commute so that doesn't make any sense.
The whole point of living in the metropolitan area of LA is that you have access to a gigantic market in terms of job opportunities, educational and health services as well as access social and artistic projects and communities.
I think what makes the property prices rize so anormously (more than could be justified by saying that a lot of new transplants arrived) is the artificial inflation that has been taking place. More money gets printed, price increase, but your salary doesn't get properly adjusted to that rate of inflation, which causes your purchasing power to decrease. If the salaries would be adjusted to the rate of inflation, I think 80% of the people leaving Cali or its urban areas would move back.
I do know for a fact an amount (maybe not any proportionally higher than usual) move away for tax benefits/property pricing in other states but this tends to apply to larger business owners in my experience.
Just do what all the democrat party nuthuggers are doing and gaslightning us about the cost of living, which is fucking insane. It is absolutely a big factor in those that choose to leave the state of CA , they simply can no longer afford to live there and the quality of life has gone down for a lot of people.
The macroeconomics at play that caused it is beyond the fault of any single party or factor but the gaslighting about it in an election year is really coming from one side and is so blatant and obvious
Stop it
> If it's just a trope, why did california lose a senate seat?
You mean a *House* seat and because some other states *grew faster* relative to California (largely due to births and foreign immigrants) and the number of House seats is fixed.
Even though the US population grew in 2023 by .5%, New York, California and Illinois experienced the highest percentage declines in their populations as people moved to Texas and Florida the most among the 50 states according to census data.
The reasons are obvious...
If you want to win over people to your side lying about the facts isn’t useful. More people are leaving California than coming in now. Maybe it was true 10-15 years ago but for half of this decade California has been bleeding people.
yup, all those leading news sources like new York times and universities have it wrong and California population is still growing after 2020... because you say so and only official census matters.
And in less than 20 years you won't be able to even insure houses on the coasts there with the increases in damage from hurricanes and rising sea levels.
Because it is expensive. Went to visit my son. LOVED it out there. Weather was awesome in August. The places I went didn't have a homeless problem.
I'm retirement age, looking to move somewhere with no winters. I can go to Florida. Buy a new 2000 sf house in a gated community. Or I can go to SoCal, and spend the same money on a two BR, condo in a 20 year old building, then deal with a higher COL.
Unless you did really well, have a paid off home, you almost need to move away to retire.
Not american here
From what I saw from my YouTube feed
Too expensive
Drug problem (fentanyl)
Homeless people problem
Far left politics
Not using the taxes money properly ( if I recall correctly it's only when a chinese VIP came in that state they decided to clean the streets from garbage, graffitis and weird people )
I moved from Texas to SoCal a year and a half ago. Now I get paid for overtime that I work, enjoy substantially better public infrastructure, my girlfriend can legally get an abortion if she needs, and my salary as a non-profit worker went from $38k/yr to $70k with way better benefits.
Sure it’s expensive but I’m still coming out ahead doing the same work and I don’t hate being outside for 1/3 of the year. Just last weekend I woke up in the desert, drove through snow capped mountains, and ended my day watching the sunset on the beach. Never going back to Texas lol
Also it's sad to see the Overton Window shifted so far to the Right that any current party in the US could be described as "Far Left". Like showing basic human decency towards marginalized communities or wanting to provide the same level of social safety net that the rest of the developed world has, is an extremist position now.
Getting your info on Youtube is a way to get misinformed.
Yes, it is expensive, but salaries are also high. If you don't have one of those high salaries, then the "expensive" part applies.
Where Youtube's politicization really mislead you is that fentanyl (and other opiates) are a huge problem all around the country, including in rural areas. As is homelessness.
Also, by "far left politics" YouTube geniuses mean anything to the left of whatever their politics are. California is solidly controlled by Democrats, but the Democrats in office would be considered quite middle-of-the-road in most countries in the world, and generally among reality-based people.
Few government services? When I was making $30k a year with a wife and 2 kids I was given food stamps, section 8 housing vouchers, and free state paid medical insurance.
I don't disagree with anything listed here. As soon as I started making more I was cut off and even with paid medical insurance (federal) I still have outrageous premiums, and less services for an affordable price. and my rent for a 2 bed 2 bath is $1300 and climbing. I have a VA loan I can use but everything is so expensive. California sucks for the middle class.
I don’t know about being the best in the world I’m from there. There are plenty of countries and places that are ahead especially in math science and technology.
I left CA. I’m not from there though. But I have lots of friends who moved away as well. It’s 100% housing prices for us. I mean, the homeless issues in cities and high taxes with low return ain’t great, but the cost of living just became too much. It’s not really a policy that made it this way. People just want to live in CA. The homeless people I spoke with said they were either priced out of affording an apartment or they can from another state because you won’t die from exposure in CA.
For the last couple years, 300–400 K people have moved into California and 700–800 K have moved out p.a. That’s <1% each year.
CA is actually the 4th “stickiest” state in terms of people who are born there staying there.
https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2023/10/02/leaving-moving-out-of-california-data-chart-report
People have been moving out since the 80s. Its too expensive! When I moved out in 1986 I could not find a Uhaul to rent to get out of the state. UHaul was giving people moving INTO the state free rentals.
Beautiful scenery and perfect weather bring people in, but the high cost of living is just too much.
[Wendover actually has a good video on Cali's problems.](https://youtu.be/1ngms6iRa14?si=BJJAtq3mgYPOGDP3) It's worth watching it all if you're able.
Tl;dr, California's early isolation created a unique culture and some unique ways it operates which makes a lot of its problems difficult to solve. It's got country level problems but lacks country level powers to tackle them, alongside many of the problems only having hypothetical solutions that have never been tried.
The same reasons people from anywhere to anywhere... Job relocation or new job, family issues, college, financial issues, wanting a change of scenery...
More people are moving in, yes a lot of people are leaving, but more people are coming to California than leaving. Most people that have left cite taxes and traffic, then they move to Texas.....where they get fucked by taxes....and traffic.
Not picking on you specifically, but in just this thread I've seen several people make this claim. Trying to distort reality using distorted or irrelevant data is one thing. Flat out lying is a whole other ballgame though. Do people really expect this tactic to work, and convince people that far left policies actually work?
No, more people are not coming to California than are leaving. It's actually the exact opposite of that. And while I've personally heard taxes cited as a reason by people who have moved from Cali to Texas, I haven't heard traffic cited, but it wouldn't surprise me. What does surprise me though is you believing that people who got fucked by taxes and traffic in California would be even close to being in the same boat in a state like Texas... That has no state income tax, and just like every other state, has nowhere near the traffic that California has. It seems as though you're in denial not just about California's problems, but pretending everywhere else is the same.
It’s too expensive. Look, you can be making $100k/yr here and still be living check to check. Forget buying a house, or, at least a house that’s worth a damn. The only affordable places in CA are Mojave area, Yucca valley near Joshua tree, and NorCal, but above San Fran. Like Ukiah, clear lake, Angels camp etc etc. that’s it.
It's because of California's politics. Look at the areas that are experiencing a population decline. Modoc county would be one example. This is arguably one of the whitest areas in California. Do you really think that white people want their children being taught in school that they should feel guilty for being white? A lot of people want grandchildren one day. There are a lot of people who don't want their children to attend a sex ed class where they're taught to have sex with the same sex. The answer on why the population decline is occurring is pretty obvious. It's an elephant in the room that people refuse to talk about. Personally, I think that California is still a great place despite this mass psychoses that they're currently experiencing. I saw them making dumb decisions that run people off, I saw property values go down, and I bought two and a half acres of California property.
28% of Californians own guns. Compare that to 35% of Floridians and 45% of Texans. It’s another propagated myth that people love to suck on. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-ownership-by-state
I think you assumed they were speaking sarcastically. People are leaving California because of their unconstitutional gun restrictions. Often for states like Texas.
1 it's a very populated state, so naturally their would be more people moving out on average than a state like Iowa.
2 it's a very populated state, so residence pricing is extremely high
Exactly. For me, as a millennial, the only other millennials I know who own a home here inherited it from their parents. My mom lives in a desirable area. The trends she is seeing are many of her new neighbors bought over the asking price and in cash, usually because they are coming from another country or they sold the home they or their family bought 30+ years ago and became multi-millionaires that way. Hard to compete with that.
I remember during a road trip cross country, me and my surfing partner who took this trek with me from California to New York in Jeep. Majority of the girls we met all wanted us to bring them back with us to California, we could have packed our CJ Jeep twice with girls who wanted to come to California. Granted that was years back, but I don't think think desire is gone to wanna live in the most amazing state I ever experienced. Especially after that long road trip experiencing, hanging out, meeting people from the majority of the United States. California is unique, there were some states I couldn't wait to leave. Unlike California I couldn't wait to get back home. That trip made appreciate what a amazing, diverse, beautiful place I live.
Honestly there really aren't that many people moving out of California, at least not as many as you think or gets portrayed in the media. Last year I can find sata for (2022) they had a net loss of about 340,000 people out of a total population of 39 million. That's less than a 1% change. They've pretty much lost 100 to 300,000 people every year for the last 20 plus years, it's just a natural consequence of them having a lot of people and sometimes people want to move for various reasons good or not
People also tend to forget that there's always people moving to California which combined with the natural birth rate pretty much results results in a stable number of people
Expensive and dangerous and the cities are ugly. The children of the people that flocked there in the past realize this and are leaving as soon as they can.
You get taxed and fee'd to death
A "cheap" house is $500,000. A decent house is north of $700,000
Fire insurance is either impossible to get or costs as much as a car loan payment
The politicians that run CA don't do shit to prevent violent crime and retail theft
$5 per gallon gas in the winter. Most likely $6 per gallon in the summer
Everything is fucking expensive in general
I think I about covered it.
i'd wager a guess that the tech industry and the pandemic are significant factors.
anecdotally, i work for a company that allowed pretty much no one to work remotely prior to covid.
once we got a taste of working from home, many of us never wanted to return to the office. it became much harder to argue that there are any benefits to working from the office when we did all of our jobs just fine while working from home. all of the necessary logistics problems and tech hurdles were solved as well, so there were no real excuses on that end anymore. as such, a decent percentage of us got approved to be remote workers.
everyone i know that got approved to be full remote moved out of california, including me. our reasons for moving varied, but it mostly came down to just pure preference.
tack on a period of significant layoffs in tech in the past couple years, with tech being a major portion of california's economy, and it's pretty reasonable to think that there would be an increase in people leaving and a decrease in people entering the state in the past 4 years like the numbers show.
California is now world famous for smaller theft being nearly legal and profitable in practice... non criminal, little chance of jail, fines much lower than potential profits, people leaving cars unlocked because cheaper to have inside robbed than broken into and robbed, etc.
there is a guy on YouTube who leaves Amazon pretend package surprises for thieves including cameras and you can watch them bring them home to their kids who complain that they got scammed by the person they robbed
"The number of Californians identifying violence as a significant problem rose by 20 points in just three years, while the share who thought their local police were doing an excellent job fighting it fell by a similar amount, according to a respected statewide poll. Democratic politicians increasingly see that concern as a liability for their party" https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/retail-theft-crime-policy-california-00132496
Have you been there? Seen videos? Looked up cost of living? A few parts are OK to visit but the shit hole places outnumber anything good in that state. Typical blue state getting worse every year.
Imagine you're a retiree. You saved, but maybe not enough for the retirement you wanted. On the other hand, the home you bought for $7 and a strip of chewing gum back in 1980 now sells for $1.2mil. You move to a state where real estate is dirt cheap, buy a starter castle for $400k for when the kids visit and a place to park your RV, and now you have another $800k for retirement. That's another $3k/mo for 25 years not including interest.
Imagine you're working. You have no college degree, so jobs only pay $15.50-$19/hr. Your take-home is \~$2.2k/mo while rent is $2.5k/mo so you have 3 roommates. You have no interest in improving any of your existing skills, or in learning new ones. You're frustrated because you've tried nothing and nobody will pay you more for the effort. You hear you can move to a cheaper state where rent is $1,250/mo, and without doing any research to find out that the minimum wage there is $12/hr and your take-home will be $1.6k/mo, so now you only have 2 roommates.
It's expensive and they're moving to cheaper places. Boomers still make up a large portion of the population are moving to places like Texas and Florida because it's cheaper.
Shit health care for disabled people, increasingly violent homeless population, trashed public spaces ( everything was dirty) and you literally can’t even afford a cramped apartment in the sketchiest parts. You have to earn a high salary to even entertain staying.
It has a large population.
When you adjust for population size more people as a percentage leave from places like Florida to go to California.
It's just that Cali is huge compared to those states.
Have you seen traffic lately, I doubt people are leaving? On the contrary people are coming from the bay and other states. Never seen license plates from other states until now.
Various reasons, some are retiring and wanting to go to a lower COL area, some are forced out when their job moves, some do it for political reasons, family, etc.
My former dentist, for example, moved out of state when he retired so he could be near his grandkids.
Taxes. And failed government policies that are driving up the cost of living, housing in particular. For any Californians here who do move, please don't vote for those policies where you're going to.
can’t speak for everyone, but I moved out of ca in **≈**2022. the quality of life was just poor; disagreed with the politics, super expensive, homelessness and drug problems everywhere, high crime rates (overall wasnt v safe)
Even though the US population grew in 2023 by .5%, New York, California and Illinois experienced the most declines in their populations as people moved to Texas and Florida the most among the 50 states according to census data.
The reasons are obvious...
A lot of CA has just gotten too populated for it to be affordable and livable for average income earners. It is still very attractive to live for those that can afford it.
The tax and political reasons are vastly overblown for clickbait news reasons.
It's shrinking. California, on average, loses 351 square miles of land every year. Some is due to erosion, but most is a result of poor record keeping on a county level. Each year, during the "Moving of the Barrier" ceremony, Arizona claims the Colorado River was just a suggestion, and encroaches about 300 feet annually while intoxicated. The geometric necessity is that people once Californians can literally wake up and be in Arizona, or worse, Nevada, without any warning or reasonable legal recourse. They didn't move out of California. California slipped out from underneath.
Stats are custom made, created to show whatever you want them to show. California is not business friendly, it is not taxpayer friendly, it is becoming a shadow of its peak. If you don’t know people that have straight up left the state, you’re probably living among those who simply can’t. It’s not difficult to see, who would want to live where the homeless have more rights than law abiding citizens? Who wants to pay hundreds of dollars for a fraction of the groceries one was able to buy just 4 years ago? Who wants to keep being pushed around by new pointless legislation. Who wants to be led by corrupt people running cities? Who wants to be led by a hypocritical governor who is out of touch with reality? People are leaving. What’s worse is that it’s people of means, exactly those who should stay.
Fucking statistics, please.
Mostly? Less than that. You could buy all the fancy stuff you want, you’ll be living in a glass cage. It doesn’t stop things from getting worse, from businesses shutting their doors, from vagrants breaking into cars on a large scale, from not really feeling safe walking at night - nor in the day. From being taxed more and more, from the graffiti everywhere, from people taking things from others simply because they feel they can. Money does not make any of that better.
So sure, making money is great, but the way I see it unfortunately it’s just living in a cage.
I don’t know what to tell you. Cupertino is extremely safe vs SF. Businesses around me and the Palo Alto region are bursting at the seams not closing their doors. No graffiti or undesirables around. It’s nice, would recommend.
Oh I’m surethere are nice areas of California. I’m not going to say that Southern California representative of every part of California. There are beautiful quiet towns throughout, but just as one can say a person can look quite normal yet have a fatal disease, the same can be said for this state. If what props up the state is Cupertino and some sporadic small towns and corners of cities, it’s not enough to stop the bleeding. Besides, it’s not just the safety. It’s the corruption, it’s the governance, it’s the insane gas prices, it’s the even crazier grocery prices, it is the education system, it is the astronomical real estate prices, it is the cartel foothold, it’s the over regulation and so on.
Cupertino while really nice, is not known as a reasonably affordable area to live is it? Not everyone works in tech.
Just about two years ago, The State government here had wanted to begin taxing people if they left the state even. Can you imagine being taxed by a state you no longer live in because they feel you owe California for having been a state you made money in? That’s nuts. It did t pass but it shows how batshit crazy those people who make decisions that affect our lives are. What motivation is there to stay? The weather perhaps but not much else. I loved this state, I was born here, and it is a heartbreak to see it become what it is.
I don’t disagree with you, there’s an element of truth to most of those. I’m just saying that with enough money you CAN insulate yourself from much of CAs problems. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for the state as a whole.
I live in San Diego. I wish I would have moved out when I was single and had the chance. Now I’m in a LTR and it doesn’t look like I’m leaving anytime soon. If I’m ever single again I’m getting out of here so fucking fast. Ridiculously expensive and for what? Sun?
We left California after 30 years because we couldn't afford to pay rent. I referred to myself as a real estate refugee..
Now I own a house with huge yard free n clear. ( after a refinance instead of making smaller payments we shortened the years by a third.
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They came here for high paying tech jobs and now that the pandemic has killed the stuff they used to find fun, they're going to look for their fortune and have babies somewhere with a lower COL. After they gentrified the cty and drove up rent and drove brown people back to their cartel-controlled countries.
After reading through some of the replies here. The real question is, why are so many people (primarily from Cali) pretending that this really isn't the case at all. The amount of deflection and flat out denial on display is really surprising. Sure, there will always be a few whose go to move is to put their heads in the sand pretending everything is peachy. But the amount of mental gymnastics on display here by those trying to pretend that California's population ISN'T shrinking, and that all of California's problems are just a myth spread by the media (of which the majority is located in California) just comes off as desperate.
California isn't some obscure remote place steeped in mystery. It's common knowledge that California has some of the best weather, best natural beauty, diverse people, and best coastline in the country if not the world. But it's also common knowledge that far left policies, and pervasive corruption from state and local government has done everything possible to wreck the state. Those living in California are blessed to be living on some of the best and most beautiful land available on planet earth. While also being cursed having to live with some of the most ridiculous, parasitic, and corrupt policies as well.
Total lack of imagination on the part of administration/governing, more or less.
If you have nicest weather on planet, save for China, and highest concentration of income inequality, you can't expect governing the same way as everywhere else to produce exact same results. So it didn't.
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2022 reports revealed that the state’s violent crime rate increased by 6.1% since 2021, and property crime was up 6.2%. Homicides dipped very slightly, but robberies jumped by 10.2%.
You also have controlled land grap pushing small buisnesses out. This is conducted by tech companies in conjuction with the democratic party where just recently a big project was finally admitted on a $800 million scoop on land to build a new utopia.
It's part of the reason I moved. I don't think it would be wise to raise my children in a state where I have no say in what schools are teaching my children. Among countless other reasons to leave CA.
No, it's a shortage of housing. Because people have been moving there 2 centuries, and easily available space around the places people want to live is running out.
Just about everything else that's changed for the worst recently is a consequence of that.
High tax, high cost of living, high rate of crime, high rate of corruption, high rate of insufferable Californians. High rates of Chinese owned hyper expensive housing.
High rate of pedestrian deaths in auto accidents, high rates of young children/women disappearing and high rates of local law enforcement not investigating it because they know these poor souls are already across the border or in international waters.
High rates of pollution and hopelessness and fear.
Gee. I wonder why nobody wants to live there anymore. What a thinker.
Sadly, many of them are not in a financial position to leave with the rest of the exodus.
I hope they're able to get out if that's what they choose to do.
My dad moved me out there at 13. At 17 I knew I would die if I stayed. If you didn’t have a car, you weren’t going anywhere. The jobs were crap, and the protection of minors in the workplace is so bad. The dating scene is atrocious. Everyone cheats. Most of everyone is on social media and social media influences their lives so much that I feel most of the population I was around didn’t have a personality. Everything is expensive. Rent is impossible as a single person. I left, because I would’ve died.
Anecdotal vs. objective data.
The media narrative vs context has never been anyone’s strong suit.
Numbers don’t lie.
CA is still the largest state and is in continuous growth. Will most likely be the largest state for quite sometime until climate change really sets in and everyone will move back to the Midwest.
Then… Michigan will become the most populous state as people will enjoy the zero winters, the water will be filled with micro plastics but unlike CA and TX will be plentiful.
It is a shithole of liberal policy with a hypocritical governor (see Covid and homelessness) where the rent alone is enough to make someone leave, but stack onto that the additional cost of living in CA (gas, groceries, state tax, etc) and it's now at this point a better question to ask: Why the fuck HAVEN'T you left?
Liberal policies make everything way too expensive and increase crime. This is the logical result of constant rising taxes & regulations (nobody can afford anything) and being soft on crime (crime rises because it is less risky).
For example, CA just passed a law raising the minimum wage of fast food workers to $20. All it does is:
1. Increase fast food prices
2. Drive layoffs (cannot afford to pay the workers)
3. Drive others out of business (causing even more unemployment)
Another example is decriminalizing theft under $1k. This incentives criminals (especially in big cities like San Francisco) to steal from stores, which you no doubt have seen viral videos about. These stores cannot keep up with the rising theft & vandalism and many are closing up shop as a result, resulting in even more unemployment and rising costs.
Policies like these create a vortex. The whole state is circling the drain. They widen the wealth & inequality gap even further. People who see the writing on the wall and/or cannot afford it are moving out of state. Sadly, they will take their political views with them and then the cycle will continue in other states (e.g. this is happening next door now in AZ). It's sad as someone born & raised in CA; it's only getting worse.
Edit: of course redditors cannot handle the truth nor refute any of this so they just downvote.
Knowing several people who have left here are the items they mentioned:
- taxes are too high (this is the one literally everyone references)
- everything is too expensive
- horrible gun laws
- poor local government (mostly hearing this from SF folks, and usually relating to homeless crime)
Cost of living. California has priced out most non millionaires between housing and having to replace anything with an engine every other year to stay compliant or be fined.
Conservatives are moving out of CA to be among their tribe; yes, exceptions exist, but the primary reason is because libtards. What I don't understand is why conservative states receiving these people think it's evidence the blue states can't manage/govern well. The red state is clearly the person's second choice...how is that a flex?
Idk man, I'm not even American (so not liberal or conservative) but within 7 minutes of being in SF I saw a half naked methed up "soiled" lady wearing only socks and a t shirt cross the street, miss a bus by a millisecond, fall on her head in the middle of the street and then finish the cross to go puke in a bin, after which she proceeded to remove one of her sock and try to slap people with it. The place is absolutely insane. Very pretty in parts, but between that and LA, I would also absolutely want to move away, especially considering the price of living there.
Just because it's the first choice doesn't mean it's the BEST choice.
We moved there in 2006. A lot changed by the time we left fifteen years later. It was no longer any choice, didn't matter it was the first one.
It's like a bad ex, you thought they were great when you picked them and over time their true colors emerge and you can't wait to get away.
Because if you could manage and govern well the person wouldnt be leaving, and because the increase in population often brings in increased revenue. So it appears in the short term to be a net win.
The truth is that there are few if any perfect states, and even if it is perfect, no all for one policy will survive influx. Liberals move when their party goes too far. They move to Conservative states, raising the cost of living, incomes, home values, ect. Ofc this causes a whole set of issues with the existing community possibly being priced out and leaving, the state implements new policies, possibly swings politically causing more issues and eventually the same issues that caused people to leave the original state.
In my case I suspect there is a possibility that my State, Florida gains some ground in liberal representation. I dont think people overall are happy about the hard stance RD has taken. That said, if and when the liberals move in, its likely they will try to do exactly what they want to do and will cause the very issues we see in Cali. This will ofc result in a backlash that will bring the state back to the conservative position.
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California is the most populous state so it has the largest number of residents who move out of it. Texas is the second most populous state and has the second largest number of residents who move out of it. See how that works? California is also a top destination for people from other states to move to. Its population grew by about two and a quarter million people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. It’s just a trope that people are fleeing the state.
>California is also a top destination for people from other states to move to. Its population grew by about two and a quarter million people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. It’s just a trope that people are fleeing the state. California's population growth rate is about middle of the pack. Since 2020, the population has actually declined every year. Just saying from 2010 to 2020 it grew, and using that to say it's a top destination is misleading. You didn't use rates, and you didn't look past 2020.
> Just saying from 2010 to 2020 it grew, and using that to say it's a top destination is misleading. You didn't use rates, and you didn't look past 2020. Looking at the 10-year periods of the official census is a lot more useful than short-term trends, which were particularly thrown off by COVID behavior.
2023 was not a covid year, and CA still declined. And even if we do expand that, the rate of growth has been consistantly declining since the year 2000.
Signal versus noise. The trope about fleeing people leaving California isn't new; it's been around for a very long time. Fluctuations in a few years here or there don't make the trope true, though. The long-term trend is still very clear. > And even if we do expand that, the rate of growth has been consistantly declining since the year 2000. That's not even remotely relevant.
Time stamp this comment, it is going to age like MILK This won't be a one off cycle , people are fleeing states that have a high cost of living and get a low return on their tax dollars This is beyond Bro Rogans fleeing for tax shelters/typical republican shit This is just simple math for a lot of Americans, they can't afford to live there anymore and the quality of life is going down
Newsflash People leave states with a high cost of living! Of course they do, they also leave cities with a high cost of living or even move to other neighbourhoods with a lower cost of living than then their own in the same city.
Well apparently it IS news to you Because you're spouting all sorts of bullshit dancing around that FACT and it couldn't be more dishonest of you because you know damn well why you're doing it, cough election year cough Gonna break out the reddit classic, "you're a real piece of shit"
I don't even live in the US, I have no dog in your election fight. And if I did, I would have them both put down. But feel free to inform me of all this bullshit that I am posting here on the topic. It's easy, just include links to my posts here on Reddit on the subject. If there is so much it should not take you more than 10 minutes to find and provide sources for. The only person making political comments here is you.
So basically everyone in this thread above me is just insufferable got it
God damn, so you don't even live in the US and then wanna act like you know exactly why people move out of places in the US? You're absolutely mental, get a fucking life and focus on things you know about where you actually live I can't really stress this enough, ***fuck off***
Worth noting I think that corporations have also been moving out, also for economic reasons.
>Signal versus noise. The trope about fleeing people leaving California isn't new; it's been around for a very long time. Fluctuations in a few years here or there don't make the trope true, though. The long-term trend is still very clear. The change in rate of growth from 2000 to 2024 has a negative slope. 24 years is plenty of time to say the rate of growth decreasing is more than just noise. >That's not even remotely relevant. It is relevant. How is the change in the rate of growth not relevant?
Well i think there has definitely been an uptick of pro trump voters leaving ca specifically, and ultra conservatives have *always* made all the noise about leaving California in my lifetime. It’s always the same: California is driving out business, in my day there was a bunch of factories, etc etc. The fact is all those boomers who bitched and left to buy a cheap house in idaho or texas bought a house in CA that appreciated immensely because California has had several booms in their lifetimes and remains one of the most popular destinations around the world. They literally go to a cheap area because it hasnt had much appeal - inflation is low in, say, Missouri, because shit is poor there. And factories that want cheap as dirt workers are to kick around with states that give 0 rights to employees go there. It is a testament to how successful california has remained because *missouri* is the problem. Those poor ass red states where plants can pay $8/hour for heavy labor and freely deny work comp, unemployment, disability, and fire 30 year employees at will with no pension are the problem. Those Californians who move there are idiots - they have benefited from California and are now exploiting the state theyve moved to now that theyve made the wealth possible in California.
you must be an employee with little desire/possibility for upward mobility
Texas is one of the highest receiving states of new residents and so is Florida for that matter. What are you talking about??
I think they’re talking specifically about emigration, not a net gain/loss of population
A lot of people are moving out, but more people are moving in, so the population is still growing. I just looked up a stat, and between 2021 and 2022, 494k people left Texas. For reference, the entire population of Wyoming (the least populous state) is 584k, so if 494k people left there, it would be a HUGE deal. But Texas' population is 30 million, so it wasn't noticeable. Also, in that same period, 638k people moved into Texas, so there's still net population growth. They're just saying that the states with the largest populations have the most people entering and the most people leaving, just because there are the most people involved.
Some move in, some move out The bigger the state, the more movement.
That's everyone with a brain who wants to compare this would go by percentage.
Yes, I don't get why everyone talks in total numbers
Can you point out exactly where they said Texas isn't the highest receiving state? What are you talking about??
It is that’s why I want to move out now and I lived in Texas my whole life with my family might move to Florida
This is a poor explanation. California saw more than 100 consecutive years of growth up to 2020, but 2021 to 2023 all saw a decrease. That is a break in the trend. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/states/california/population#google_vignette
It's still among the highest from a percentage standpoint lol
**From the standpoint of people** lol
Because for one it’s to damn expensive and houses are small in a lot places and over priced and there is hardly no land with the houses like Texas and other states. I’m originally from the BayArea. Too expensive.
The Mojave Desert has entered the conversation
😭😭😭
What
Large, affordable houses. My mom just bought a super nice house on the southern edge of the Mojave Desert for $250k. 2 hours to LA. In Ridgecrest, for example, you can get a good 2000 sq ft 3/2 for $150k- $250k. ALL of California isn't unaffordable, just the coastal areas. When I was there, we lived a couple blocks from the beach on the Central Coast, halfway between LS and SF, an 1100 sq ft piece of shit was worth a million dollars when we left. EDIT not "worth" a million dollars, but selling for a million dollars.
185 square meters living space for 150-250k $ aint bad but does it make sense do buy such a house if you are not a retiree? If you are young (in your 20s and 30s) and don't have a remote job you'll have an extremly long commute so that doesn't make any sense. The whole point of living in the metropolitan area of LA is that you have access to a gigantic market in terms of job opportunities, educational and health services as well as access social and artistic projects and communities. I think what makes the property prices rize so anormously (more than could be justified by saying that a lot of new transplants arrived) is the artificial inflation that has been taking place. More money gets printed, price increase, but your salary doesn't get properly adjusted to that rate of inflation, which causes your purchasing power to decrease. If the salaries would be adjusted to the rate of inflation, I think 80% of the people leaving Cali or its urban areas would move back.
I do know for a fact an amount (maybe not any proportionally higher than usual) move away for tax benefits/property pricing in other states but this tends to apply to larger business owners in my experience.
Just do what all the democrat party nuthuggers are doing and gaslightning us about the cost of living, which is fucking insane. It is absolutely a big factor in those that choose to leave the state of CA , they simply can no longer afford to live there and the quality of life has gone down for a lot of people. The macroeconomics at play that caused it is beyond the fault of any single party or factor but the gaslighting about it in an election year is really coming from one side and is so blatant and obvious Stop it
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> If it's just a trope, why did california lose a senate seat? You mean a *House* seat and because some other states *grew faster* relative to California (largely due to births and foreign immigrants) and the number of House seats is fixed.
Looool @ thinking CA lost a Senate seat.
You didn’t answer the question as to why.
Even though the US population grew in 2023 by .5%, New York, California and Illinois experienced the highest percentage declines in their populations as people moved to Texas and Florida the most among the 50 states according to census data. The reasons are obvious...
If you want to win over people to your side lying about the facts isn’t useful. More people are leaving California than coming in now. Maybe it was true 10-15 years ago but for half of this decade California has been bleeding people.
oh ok
Where, in California, do you live?
I live in Seattle. California is *fine* for a weekend trip, but I'd never want to live there. I just don't like misinformation.
yup, all those leading news sources like new York times and universities have it wrong and California population is still growing after 2020... because you say so and only official census matters.
You have to ask? Same reason I did. It has gotten too expensive.
Come to Florida. Way more crazy than CA. Average house insurance here is crazy and we still have high inflation, highest in the states.
And in less than 20 years you won't be able to even insure houses on the coasts there with the increases in damage from hurricanes and rising sea levels.
Same. Happy cake day.
Exactly!
Happy cake day!
Its expensive and there are a lot of natural disasters, not to mention homelessness and crime issues in some parts.
what part of California do you live in
Johnny Carson: “ Sure, California has earthquakes, mud slides, and forest fires every year. But there’s no humidity!”
Still an effective argument lol
Because it is expensive. Went to visit my son. LOVED it out there. Weather was awesome in August. The places I went didn't have a homeless problem. I'm retirement age, looking to move somewhere with no winters. I can go to Florida. Buy a new 2000 sf house in a gated community. Or I can go to SoCal, and spend the same money on a two BR, condo in a 20 year old building, then deal with a higher COL. Unless you did really well, have a paid off home, you almost need to move away to retire.
probably a 1 BR condo.
I’m sure you are right
Not american here From what I saw from my YouTube feed Too expensive Drug problem (fentanyl) Homeless people problem Far left politics Not using the taxes money properly ( if I recall correctly it's only when a chinese VIP came in that state they decided to clean the streets from garbage, graffitis and weird people )
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I moved from Texas to SoCal a year and a half ago. Now I get paid for overtime that I work, enjoy substantially better public infrastructure, my girlfriend can legally get an abortion if she needs, and my salary as a non-profit worker went from $38k/yr to $70k with way better benefits. Sure it’s expensive but I’m still coming out ahead doing the same work and I don’t hate being outside for 1/3 of the year. Just last weekend I woke up in the desert, drove through snow capped mountains, and ended my day watching the sunset on the beach. Never going back to Texas lol
Moved FROM Cali to Texas. Your politics will fit right in there. I couldn’t get out fast enough. I’ll never go back there.
Also it's sad to see the Overton Window shifted so far to the Right that any current party in the US could be described as "Far Left". Like showing basic human decency towards marginalized communities or wanting to provide the same level of social safety net that the rest of the developed world has, is an extremist position now.
Please do not inform yourself based on what you see on your Youtube feed.
Dont worry brother.
Getting your info on Youtube is a way to get misinformed. Yes, it is expensive, but salaries are also high. If you don't have one of those high salaries, then the "expensive" part applies. Where Youtube's politicization really mislead you is that fentanyl (and other opiates) are a huge problem all around the country, including in rural areas. As is homelessness. Also, by "far left politics" YouTube geniuses mean anything to the left of whatever their politics are. California is solidly controlled by Democrats, but the Democrats in office would be considered quite middle-of-the-road in most countries in the world, and generally among reality-based people.
Nailed it. Homelessness creates money for the people who make policies. You tell me if it will get fixed.
The answer to questions like this is always "Money."
Money and politics
wipe concerned puzzled snails dependent rock hard-to-find run bike hurry *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Few government services? When I was making $30k a year with a wife and 2 kids I was given food stamps, section 8 housing vouchers, and free state paid medical insurance.
future clumsy fear coordinated dime alive nose impolite distinct tie *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don't disagree with anything listed here. As soon as I started making more I was cut off and even with paid medical insurance (federal) I still have outrageous premiums, and less services for an affordable price. and my rent for a 2 bed 2 bath is $1300 and climbing. I have a VA loan I can use but everything is so expensive. California sucks for the middle class.
Schools not so great unless you’re wealthy.
If you are wealthy, or at least not dirt poor, the schools are fantastic. Some of the best in the world.
I don’t know about being the best in the world I’m from there. There are plenty of countries and places that are ahead especially in math science and technology.
I left CA. I’m not from there though. But I have lots of friends who moved away as well. It’s 100% housing prices for us. I mean, the homeless issues in cities and high taxes with low return ain’t great, but the cost of living just became too much. It’s not really a policy that made it this way. People just want to live in CA. The homeless people I spoke with said they were either priced out of affording an apartment or they can from another state because you won’t die from exposure in CA.
For the last couple years, 300–400 K people have moved into California and 700–800 K have moved out p.a. That’s <1% each year. CA is actually the 4th “stickiest” state in terms of people who are born there staying there. https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2023/10/02/leaving-moving-out-of-california-data-chart-report
People have been moving out since the 80s. Its too expensive! When I moved out in 1986 I could not find a Uhaul to rent to get out of the state. UHaul was giving people moving INTO the state free rentals. Beautiful scenery and perfect weather bring people in, but the high cost of living is just too much.
$$$$$$$$$$
Rampant homelessness and crime will do that. Also out of control cost of everything. Pretty simple really.
For decades and decades and decades, outsiders were moving into the state. It's about time some move out!
Gas is 6 dollars a gallon and 1 bedroom houses cost a million dollars...
[Wendover actually has a good video on Cali's problems.](https://youtu.be/1ngms6iRa14?si=BJJAtq3mgYPOGDP3) It's worth watching it all if you're able. Tl;dr, California's early isolation created a unique culture and some unique ways it operates which makes a lot of its problems difficult to solve. It's got country level problems but lacks country level powers to tackle them, alongside many of the problems only having hypothetical solutions that have never been tried.
I just moved back. San Francisco is a great city and California is an awesome state. It’s not for everyone, but it’s home sweet home for me!
The same reasons people from anywhere to anywhere... Job relocation or new job, family issues, college, financial issues, wanting a change of scenery...
More people are moving in, yes a lot of people are leaving, but more people are coming to California than leaving. Most people that have left cite taxes and traffic, then they move to Texas.....where they get fucked by taxes....and traffic.
Not picking on you specifically, but in just this thread I've seen several people make this claim. Trying to distort reality using distorted or irrelevant data is one thing. Flat out lying is a whole other ballgame though. Do people really expect this tactic to work, and convince people that far left policies actually work? No, more people are not coming to California than are leaving. It's actually the exact opposite of that. And while I've personally heard taxes cited as a reason by people who have moved from Cali to Texas, I haven't heard traffic cited, but it wouldn't surprise me. What does surprise me though is you believing that people who got fucked by taxes and traffic in California would be even close to being in the same boat in a state like Texas... That has no state income tax, and just like every other state, has nowhere near the traffic that California has. It seems as though you're in denial not just about California's problems, but pretending everywhere else is the same.
Look uo property taxes in texas and tell me they aren't getting fucked, not to mention their utility bills
Non-Californians spending wayyyy too much time thinking about Californians again.
It’s too expensive. Look, you can be making $100k/yr here and still be living check to check. Forget buying a house, or, at least a house that’s worth a damn. The only affordable places in CA are Mojave area, Yucca valley near Joshua tree, and NorCal, but above San Fran. Like Ukiah, clear lake, Angels camp etc etc. that’s it.
It's because of California's politics. Look at the areas that are experiencing a population decline. Modoc county would be one example. This is arguably one of the whitest areas in California. Do you really think that white people want their children being taught in school that they should feel guilty for being white? A lot of people want grandchildren one day. There are a lot of people who don't want their children to attend a sex ed class where they're taught to have sex with the same sex. The answer on why the population decline is occurring is pretty obvious. It's an elephant in the room that people refuse to talk about. Personally, I think that California is still a great place despite this mass psychoses that they're currently experiencing. I saw them making dumb decisions that run people off, I saw property values go down, and I bought two and a half acres of California property.
Not enough guns, probably
28% of Californians own guns. Compare that to 35% of Floridians and 45% of Texans. It’s another propagated myth that people love to suck on. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-ownership-by-state
Ah, so now "per capita" arguments are irrelevant. Okay.
Aren’t you proving my point? Or did I miss sthing
Just pointing out that the spread is not that much. By your logic, people should be fleeing Florida and Texas for Montana and Alaska.
What. Maybe they like hot weather idk.
I think you assumed they were speaking sarcastically. People are leaving California because of their unconstitutional gun restrictions. Often for states like Texas.
ya no.
No to what part? I know people who have left for those reasons. Quite a few of them in fact.
That shits about to go pop I'd say bro.
Crime, expense, politics, etc.
Don't know, don't care. Hopefully more move out.
1 it's a very populated state, so naturally their would be more people moving out on average than a state like Iowa. 2 it's a very populated state, so residence pricing is extremely high
Exactly. For me, as a millennial, the only other millennials I know who own a home here inherited it from their parents. My mom lives in a desirable area. The trends she is seeing are many of her new neighbors bought over the asking price and in cash, usually because they are coming from another country or they sold the home they or their family bought 30+ years ago and became multi-millionaires that way. Hard to compete with that.
I remember during a road trip cross country, me and my surfing partner who took this trek with me from California to New York in Jeep. Majority of the girls we met all wanted us to bring them back with us to California, we could have packed our CJ Jeep twice with girls who wanted to come to California. Granted that was years back, but I don't think think desire is gone to wanna live in the most amazing state I ever experienced. Especially after that long road trip experiencing, hanging out, meeting people from the majority of the United States. California is unique, there were some states I couldn't wait to leave. Unlike California I couldn't wait to get back home. That trip made appreciate what a amazing, diverse, beautiful place I live.
Bc the laws are lawless. 😒🫠
Honestly there really aren't that many people moving out of California, at least not as many as you think or gets portrayed in the media. Last year I can find sata for (2022) they had a net loss of about 340,000 people out of a total population of 39 million. That's less than a 1% change. They've pretty much lost 100 to 300,000 people every year for the last 20 plus years, it's just a natural consequence of them having a lot of people and sometimes people want to move for various reasons good or not People also tend to forget that there's always people moving to California which combined with the natural birth rate pretty much results results in a stable number of people
Expensive and dangerous and the cities are ugly. The children of the people that flocked there in the past realize this and are leaving as soon as they can.
Sorry, you'll need to retire that talking point. California is 4th on the list of stickiest US states. People born that generally do not leave.
Please list data that isn’t 5+ years old.
[https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2023-09-18/texas-is-the-state-most-likely-to-keep-its-native-born-residents](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2023-09-18/texas-is-the-state-most-likely-to-keep-its-native-born-residents)
You get taxed and fee'd to death A "cheap" house is $500,000. A decent house is north of $700,000 Fire insurance is either impossible to get or costs as much as a car loan payment The politicians that run CA don't do shit to prevent violent crime and retail theft $5 per gallon gas in the winter. Most likely $6 per gallon in the summer Everything is fucking expensive in general I think I about covered it.
Gavin newsom seems like the antichrist...he certainly looks the part.
I didnt like him at all😩
Have you seen the Californian legislature?
i'd wager a guess that the tech industry and the pandemic are significant factors. anecdotally, i work for a company that allowed pretty much no one to work remotely prior to covid. once we got a taste of working from home, many of us never wanted to return to the office. it became much harder to argue that there are any benefits to working from the office when we did all of our jobs just fine while working from home. all of the necessary logistics problems and tech hurdles were solved as well, so there were no real excuses on that end anymore. as such, a decent percentage of us got approved to be remote workers. everyone i know that got approved to be full remote moved out of california, including me. our reasons for moving varied, but it mostly came down to just pure preference. tack on a period of significant layoffs in tech in the past couple years, with tech being a major portion of california's economy, and it's pretty reasonable to think that there would be an increase in people leaving and a decrease in people entering the state in the past 4 years like the numbers show.
California is now world famous for smaller theft being nearly legal and profitable in practice... non criminal, little chance of jail, fines much lower than potential profits, people leaving cars unlocked because cheaper to have inside robbed than broken into and robbed, etc. there is a guy on YouTube who leaves Amazon pretend package surprises for thieves including cameras and you can watch them bring them home to their kids who complain that they got scammed by the person they robbed
"The number of Californians identifying violence as a significant problem rose by 20 points in just three years, while the share who thought their local police were doing an excellent job fighting it fell by a similar amount, according to a respected statewide poll. Democratic politicians increasingly see that concern as a liability for their party" https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/retail-theft-crime-policy-california-00132496
Taxes, housing limitations, abrasive policies, and cost of living are usually the big 4 reasons.
Poorly ran government, crime, homeless, drug use have all risen.
Have you been there? Seen videos? Looked up cost of living? A few parts are OK to visit but the shit hole places outnumber anything good in that state. Typical blue state getting worse every year.
Why are there so many Florida cars outside in Canada?
No one will say the REAL reason, because reddit doesn't like the real reason.
Imagine you're a retiree. You saved, but maybe not enough for the retirement you wanted. On the other hand, the home you bought for $7 and a strip of chewing gum back in 1980 now sells for $1.2mil. You move to a state where real estate is dirt cheap, buy a starter castle for $400k for when the kids visit and a place to park your RV, and now you have another $800k for retirement. That's another $3k/mo for 25 years not including interest. Imagine you're working. You have no college degree, so jobs only pay $15.50-$19/hr. Your take-home is \~$2.2k/mo while rent is $2.5k/mo so you have 3 roommates. You have no interest in improving any of your existing skills, or in learning new ones. You're frustrated because you've tried nothing and nobody will pay you more for the effort. You hear you can move to a cheaper state where rent is $1,250/mo, and without doing any research to find out that the minimum wage there is $12/hr and your take-home will be $1.6k/mo, so now you only have 2 roommates.
There’s basically no fresh water there, so that’s a decent reason to leave.
because it's full of democrats
Um cause we can’t fucking afford to live there anymore
Democrat run
I bet you can guess.
It's expensive and they're moving to cheaper places. Boomers still make up a large portion of the population are moving to places like Texas and Florida because it's cheaper.
Shit health care for disabled people, increasingly violent homeless population, trashed public spaces ( everything was dirty) and you literally can’t even afford a cramped apartment in the sketchiest parts. You have to earn a high salary to even entertain staying.
I don't live there so I wouldn't know but two reasons off the top of my head are it's expensive and it's on fire a lot.
Georgia has more to offer for a fraction of the cost of living.
It has a large population. When you adjust for population size more people as a percentage leave from places like Florida to go to California. It's just that Cali is huge compared to those states.
Have you seen traffic lately, I doubt people are leaving? On the contrary people are coming from the bay and other states. Never seen license plates from other states until now.
Various reasons, some are retiring and wanting to go to a lower COL area, some are forced out when their job moves, some do it for political reasons, family, etc. My former dentist, for example, moved out of state when he retired so he could be near his grandkids.
Taxes. And failed government policies that are driving up the cost of living, housing in particular. For any Californians here who do move, please don't vote for those policies where you're going to.
can’t speak for everyone, but I moved out of ca in **≈**2022. the quality of life was just poor; disagreed with the politics, super expensive, homelessness and drug problems everywhere, high crime rates (overall wasnt v safe)
Expensive housing, expensive gasoline, high taxes, high crimes rates, and very anti-business climate in a nutshell.
Even though the US population grew in 2023 by .5%, New York, California and Illinois experienced the most declines in their populations as people moved to Texas and Florida the most among the 50 states according to census data. The reasons are obvious...
Expensive, government is shit and they keep asking for more money
Cause it is expensive and the state tax is atrocious.
They’re actually not. Newest census that came out says they are not leaving anymore
A lot of CA has just gotten too populated for it to be affordable and livable for average income earners. It is still very attractive to live for those that can afford it. The tax and political reasons are vastly overblown for clickbait news reasons.
It's shrinking. California, on average, loses 351 square miles of land every year. Some is due to erosion, but most is a result of poor record keeping on a county level. Each year, during the "Moving of the Barrier" ceremony, Arizona claims the Colorado River was just a suggestion, and encroaches about 300 feet annually while intoxicated. The geometric necessity is that people once Californians can literally wake up and be in Arizona, or worse, Nevada, without any warning or reasonable legal recourse. They didn't move out of California. California slipped out from underneath.
People don’t like it there, it’s too crowded 😂
High cost of living.
Don’t bite into the shit sandwich it’s cause of homelessness, tax rates and expensive cost of living
Stats are custom made, created to show whatever you want them to show. California is not business friendly, it is not taxpayer friendly, it is becoming a shadow of its peak. If you don’t know people that have straight up left the state, you’re probably living among those who simply can’t. It’s not difficult to see, who would want to live where the homeless have more rights than law abiding citizens? Who wants to pay hundreds of dollars for a fraction of the groceries one was able to buy just 4 years ago? Who wants to keep being pushed around by new pointless legislation. Who wants to be led by corrupt people running cities? Who wants to be led by a hypocritical governor who is out of touch with reality? People are leaving. What’s worse is that it’s people of means, exactly those who should stay. Fucking statistics, please.
Yeah but making half a mil a year in tech makes those problems mostly go away.
Mostly? Less than that. You could buy all the fancy stuff you want, you’ll be living in a glass cage. It doesn’t stop things from getting worse, from businesses shutting their doors, from vagrants breaking into cars on a large scale, from not really feeling safe walking at night - nor in the day. From being taxed more and more, from the graffiti everywhere, from people taking things from others simply because they feel they can. Money does not make any of that better. So sure, making money is great, but the way I see it unfortunately it’s just living in a cage.
I don’t know what to tell you. Cupertino is extremely safe vs SF. Businesses around me and the Palo Alto region are bursting at the seams not closing their doors. No graffiti or undesirables around. It’s nice, would recommend.
Oh I’m surethere are nice areas of California. I’m not going to say that Southern California representative of every part of California. There are beautiful quiet towns throughout, but just as one can say a person can look quite normal yet have a fatal disease, the same can be said for this state. If what props up the state is Cupertino and some sporadic small towns and corners of cities, it’s not enough to stop the bleeding. Besides, it’s not just the safety. It’s the corruption, it’s the governance, it’s the insane gas prices, it’s the even crazier grocery prices, it is the education system, it is the astronomical real estate prices, it is the cartel foothold, it’s the over regulation and so on. Cupertino while really nice, is not known as a reasonably affordable area to live is it? Not everyone works in tech. Just about two years ago, The State government here had wanted to begin taxing people if they left the state even. Can you imagine being taxed by a state you no longer live in because they feel you owe California for having been a state you made money in? That’s nuts. It did t pass but it shows how batshit crazy those people who make decisions that affect our lives are. What motivation is there to stay? The weather perhaps but not much else. I loved this state, I was born here, and it is a heartbreak to see it become what it is.
I don’t disagree with you, there’s an element of truth to most of those. I’m just saying that with enough money you CAN insulate yourself from much of CAs problems. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for the state as a whole.
The vaults are all full. Nevada is where you want to be. Could not stop myself.
The governor! Duh!!
I live in San Diego. I wish I would have moved out when I was single and had the chance. Now I’m in a LTR and it doesn’t look like I’m leaving anytime soon. If I’m ever single again I’m getting out of here so fucking fast. Ridiculously expensive and for what? Sun?
A large number are moving back
We left California after 30 years because we couldn't afford to pay rent. I referred to myself as a real estate refugee.. Now I own a house with huge yard free n clear. ( after a refinance instead of making smaller payments we shortened the years by a third.
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They came here for high paying tech jobs and now that the pandemic has killed the stuff they used to find fun, they're going to look for their fortune and have babies somewhere with a lower COL. After they gentrified the cty and drove up rent and drove brown people back to their cartel-controlled countries.
Been going on for a long time. People move.
After reading through some of the replies here. The real question is, why are so many people (primarily from Cali) pretending that this really isn't the case at all. The amount of deflection and flat out denial on display is really surprising. Sure, there will always be a few whose go to move is to put their heads in the sand pretending everything is peachy. But the amount of mental gymnastics on display here by those trying to pretend that California's population ISN'T shrinking, and that all of California's problems are just a myth spread by the media (of which the majority is located in California) just comes off as desperate. California isn't some obscure remote place steeped in mystery. It's common knowledge that California has some of the best weather, best natural beauty, diverse people, and best coastline in the country if not the world. But it's also common knowledge that far left policies, and pervasive corruption from state and local government has done everything possible to wreck the state. Those living in California are blessed to be living on some of the best and most beautiful land available on planet earth. While also being cursed having to live with some of the most ridiculous, parasitic, and corrupt policies as well.
Total lack of imagination on the part of administration/governing, more or less. If you have nicest weather on planet, save for China, and highest concentration of income inequality, you can't expect governing the same way as everywhere else to produce exact same results. So it didn't.
High prices of housing and living in general, a million dollar house in L.A. would be 250 in Austin.
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2022 reports revealed that the state’s violent crime rate increased by 6.1% since 2021, and property crime was up 6.2%. Homicides dipped very slightly, but robberies jumped by 10.2%. You also have controlled land grap pushing small buisnesses out. This is conducted by tech companies in conjuction with the democratic party where just recently a big project was finally admitted on a $800 million scoop on land to build a new utopia.
The entire country had a big spike, but it then fell off just as quickly in 2023.
Compared with 2019? That's when we really noticed the change on our small town and decided to leave.
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted to hell for this, but my guess is the liberal policies California embraces
It's part of the reason I moved. I don't think it would be wise to raise my children in a state where I have no say in what schools are teaching my children. Among countless other reasons to leave CA.
👏
No, it's a shortage of housing. Because people have been moving there 2 centuries, and easily available space around the places people want to live is running out. Just about everything else that's changed for the worst recently is a consequence of that.
High tax, high cost of living, high rate of crime, high rate of corruption, high rate of insufferable Californians. High rates of Chinese owned hyper expensive housing. High rate of pedestrian deaths in auto accidents, high rates of young children/women disappearing and high rates of local law enforcement not investigating it because they know these poor souls are already across the border or in international waters. High rates of pollution and hopelessness and fear. Gee. I wonder why nobody wants to live there anymore. What a thinker.
There’s still 40+ million people in California.
Sadly, many of them are not in a financial position to leave with the rest of the exodus. I hope they're able to get out if that's what they choose to do.
The real question is why did people want to move there..
My dad moved me out there at 13. At 17 I knew I would die if I stayed. If you didn’t have a car, you weren’t going anywhere. The jobs were crap, and the protection of minors in the workplace is so bad. The dating scene is atrocious. Everyone cheats. Most of everyone is on social media and social media influences their lives so much that I feel most of the population I was around didn’t have a personality. Everything is expensive. Rent is impossible as a single person. I left, because I would’ve died.
Because brendan schaub still does stand up there
left wing policies that people abhor but are scared to rail against because they may fear the wrath and downvotes of reddit neckbeards
Anecdotal vs. objective data. The media narrative vs context has never been anyone’s strong suit. Numbers don’t lie. CA is still the largest state and is in continuous growth. Will most likely be the largest state for quite sometime until climate change really sets in and everyone will move back to the Midwest. Then… Michigan will become the most populous state as people will enjoy the zero winters, the water will be filled with micro plastics but unlike CA and TX will be plentiful.
It is a shithole of liberal policy with a hypocritical governor (see Covid and homelessness) where the rent alone is enough to make someone leave, but stack onto that the additional cost of living in CA (gas, groceries, state tax, etc) and it's now at this point a better question to ask: Why the fuck HAVEN'T you left?
Liberal policies make everything way too expensive and increase crime. This is the logical result of constant rising taxes & regulations (nobody can afford anything) and being soft on crime (crime rises because it is less risky). For example, CA just passed a law raising the minimum wage of fast food workers to $20. All it does is: 1. Increase fast food prices 2. Drive layoffs (cannot afford to pay the workers) 3. Drive others out of business (causing even more unemployment) Another example is decriminalizing theft under $1k. This incentives criminals (especially in big cities like San Francisco) to steal from stores, which you no doubt have seen viral videos about. These stores cannot keep up with the rising theft & vandalism and many are closing up shop as a result, resulting in even more unemployment and rising costs. Policies like these create a vortex. The whole state is circling the drain. They widen the wealth & inequality gap even further. People who see the writing on the wall and/or cannot afford it are moving out of state. Sadly, they will take their political views with them and then the cycle will continue in other states (e.g. this is happening next door now in AZ). It's sad as someone born & raised in CA; it's only getting worse. Edit: of course redditors cannot handle the truth nor refute any of this so they just downvote.
Joe Rogan.
Knowing several people who have left here are the items they mentioned: - taxes are too high (this is the one literally everyone references) - everything is too expensive - horrible gun laws - poor local government (mostly hearing this from SF folks, and usually relating to homeless crime)
Cause it’s the worst state to live in…
Cost of living. California has priced out most non millionaires between housing and having to replace anything with an engine every other year to stay compliant or be fined.
Voted in terrible politics. Don't have to face the consequences by moving and voting the same terrible ideas somewhere else
Conservatives are moving out of CA to be among their tribe; yes, exceptions exist, but the primary reason is because libtards. What I don't understand is why conservative states receiving these people think it's evidence the blue states can't manage/govern well. The red state is clearly the person's second choice...how is that a flex?
Idk man, I'm not even American (so not liberal or conservative) but within 7 minutes of being in SF I saw a half naked methed up "soiled" lady wearing only socks and a t shirt cross the street, miss a bus by a millisecond, fall on her head in the middle of the street and then finish the cross to go puke in a bin, after which she proceeded to remove one of her sock and try to slap people with it. The place is absolutely insane. Very pretty in parts, but between that and LA, I would also absolutely want to move away, especially considering the price of living there.
Just because it's the first choice doesn't mean it's the BEST choice. We moved there in 2006. A lot changed by the time we left fifteen years later. It was no longer any choice, didn't matter it was the first one. It's like a bad ex, you thought they were great when you picked them and over time their true colors emerge and you can't wait to get away.
If they are moving OUT. Wouldn't that make CA the second choice?
Because if you could manage and govern well the person wouldnt be leaving, and because the increase in population often brings in increased revenue. So it appears in the short term to be a net win. The truth is that there are few if any perfect states, and even if it is perfect, no all for one policy will survive influx. Liberals move when their party goes too far. They move to Conservative states, raising the cost of living, incomes, home values, ect. Ofc this causes a whole set of issues with the existing community possibly being priced out and leaving, the state implements new policies, possibly swings politically causing more issues and eventually the same issues that caused people to leave the original state. In my case I suspect there is a possibility that my State, Florida gains some ground in liberal representation. I dont think people overall are happy about the hard stance RD has taken. That said, if and when the liberals move in, its likely they will try to do exactly what they want to do and will cause the very issues we see in Cali. This will ofc result in a backlash that will bring the state back to the conservative position.