Texas leads the nation in supplying new residents to other states

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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Texas supplied the most new residents of any U.S. state for nine other states, despite having the biggest population growth this decade, according to figures released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.

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

With 31 million residents, Texas ranks second in population among U.S. states. Between 2020 and 2024, Texas gained 2.1 million people.

“The obvious and primary answer is size,” said Dudley Poston, professor emeritus of sociology at Texas A&M University. “There’s got to be more people leaving Texas than leaving other states because of the population size of Texas."

Other large producers of residents who moved to other states included the nation's other most populous states: California, Florida and New York.

California, the most populous U.S. state with 39 million residents, supplied the most new residents to the western states of Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Washington. But it also was the top supplier of domestic residents to Tennessee, home to Nashville, which has established a pipeline to Southern California's entertainment industry.

Florida, the third most populous U.S. state with 23 million residents, dominated the number of new residents in the southeast states of Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina but also Ohio. Florida has gained 1.8 million residents this decade, the second most of any state.

Although the Sunshine State's size played a primary role, other factors may be involved too, such as Florida’s escalating real estate and homeowners’ insurance prices and the more plentiful job opportunities for recent college graduates in cities like Atlanta and Charlotte, according to Richard Doty, a research demographer at the University of Florida.

“It is no longer as affordable a relocation/ retirement option as it once was,” Doty said in an email.

New York was the top source of new residents in Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and New Jersey, while Illinois provided the most new residents for Midwestern neighbors Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin.

“The states with the largest out-migration numbers — California, Florida, Texas, and New York — are also the states with the largest populations. That’s not a coincidence," said Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center. "Large populations naturally generate large volumes of both in-and-out migrants.”

Some migration patterns were no real surprises, such as former Massachusetts residents being the biggest source of new Mainers, New Hampshirites, Rhode Islanders and Vermonters. Former Wisconsinites made up the largest number of new Minnesotans, and former North Carolinians were the biggest source of new South Carolina residents.

In most states in 2024, before the immigration crackdown of the second Trump administration, people arriving from a foreign country were the top source of new residents. Among the exceptions, where international migration wasn't large compared to people moving from individual U.S. states, were Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The Census Bureau is releasing new population estimates next week that will show how the U.S. changed in 2025.

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