N J Exodus

 Excerpts

It’s a familiar story: Residents, sick of the cost of living, pick up and flee New Jersey.

Now, one moving company is saying it helped a higher percentage of people in New Jersey do just that than in any other state in 2018.

United Van Lines’ annual study of migration patterns among customers found that, of the more than 4,400 New Jersey residents who made an interstate move with the company last year, two-thirds left the state, rather than arrived here.

It doesn’t mean we’re shrinking: The state’s population grew 0.22 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by New Jersey Future, a nonprofit political advocacy group. And New Jersey remains the most densely populated state in the country.  But it’s another data point in the long-running conversation about a slow exodus from the state. The Census Bureau found 61 percent of the state’s interstate moves were outbound last year, according to Michael Stoll, a professor and researcher at UCLA who worked with United Van Lines to analyze the survey.

Hughes said the United Van Lines study doesn’t account for people arriving in the state from abroad, and domestically, those who aren’t bringing as many personal items with them and aren’t in need of a moving company.

In a 2018 report, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association said, after researching census and tax return data, that the state lost $24.9 billion in adjusted gross income between 2004 and 2016.

After residents left, the “people (who) came in behind them, they did not make up the difference in that loss of money from the state of New Jersey,” said Melissa Siekerka, president of the NJBIA.

Entire article at
https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/new_jersey/more-people-leaving-new-jersey-than-arriving-moving-company-says/article_e9224319-5d4d-5e6f-bcc1-ab3c8335712e.html