Remember all that talk about a mass exodus from California in 2020?
The combination of an over-bearing governor who many felt was unfit to lead the state, coupled with extremely high taxes, an out-of-control homeless problems in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and other factors associated with the pandemic was supposed to be driving residents out of California for good.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Research released from a nonpartisan think tank, the California Policy lab, said most of the moves that did happen in California, occurred in state.
“No, there is not a mass exodus of people leaving California. Of people who moved, about 80% moved to a new location in California, not out of the state,” the group reported on Twitter.
The research team used used what’s called the University of California Consumer Credit Panel as the data for analyzing where people from each county moved after the pandemic hit in March of 2020.
One thing the research did discover, is while a normal amount of people moved out of the state, there were much fewer people moving into the state. “While a mass exodus from California clearly didn’t happen in 2020, the pandemic did change some historical patterns, for example, fewer people moved into the state to replace those who left,” Natalie Holmes, the author of the study said in a statement.
“At the county level, however, San Francisco is experiencing a unique and dramatic exodus, which is causing 50% or 100% increases in Bay Area in-migration for some counties in the Sierras,” Holmes said.
There was one part of California that saw an abnormal number of residents leave, and that was San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Net exits from San Francisco between the end of last March and the end of 2020 increased 649% when compared to the same period in 2019 the study said. About two-thirds remained within the Bay Area economic region, and 80% stayed in California according to the study.
Just because there was not a mass exodus, does not mean Californians are thrilled with Governor Gavin Newsom. It looks almost certain that he will have to face a runoff election in the fall.
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