[LA Magazine] A combination of pandemic panic, an aging population, Trump’s immigration policies, and tax fatigue may be adding up to slower population growth in California.As the Associated Press reports, a new population estimate released Wednesday by the Department of Finance found that 136,000 more people left California than moved here from July 2019 to July 2020. That makes three consecutive years of net migration out of the state.
While more residents may have moved away than moved in, the total population of the state still increased by a net of 21,200, up to a total of 39.78 million, by far the largest population of any state in the nation.
California’s last two major population constrictions happened in the 1990s when the end of the Cold War brought aerospace spending to a trickle, and again as the Great Recession of the 2000s got underway.
The causes behind the current era of emigration are not entirely known, but a number of factors may be playing into the trend.
Housing affordability is cited by many as a reason to flee the Golden State. The state’s median home price reached yet another record high this fall, hitting $712,000 in September.
"I knew for sure I’m never going to own a home. So I talked to my girlfriend, and that was our defining moment," software salesman Colin Jordan told The New York Times earlier this year about his reasons for moving out of the Bay Area. "I said: ’I want to buy a house and start a life. Will you move with me?’"
The couple now own a four-bedroom home in Arizona. And they’re far from the only California transplants that have taken up in the Sun Belt.