NY and NJ residents continue to flee to TX, Florida and other Sunbelt States

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Far more people moved to Vermont, Idaho, Oregon and South Carolina than left during the pandemic, according to data provided to Bloomberg News by United Van Lines. On the other hand, the reverse was true for New York and New Jersey, which saw residents moving to Florida, Texas and other Sunbelt states between March and July.

As August closes Monday with another move-out deadline, signs point to a sharp turn in U.S. mobility. Relocations had reached an all-time low in 2019, according to the Brookings Institution’s tracking.

“We have seen increased mobility across the states -- driven by a fear of living in densely populated areas, a realization that the ‘old normal’ of commuting into a city office is still but a distant possibility, and the realization that remote work can be an effective, long-term option,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

The beneficiaries have been competitors to dense cities that seem too crowded in a public-health emergency. Cities in Florida, Texas, California and North Carolina accounted for just under half of New Yorker relocations, data from United Van Lines show.

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