Nearly a quarter-million people left New York for other states in the past year, continuing a long-term trend in which the Empire State has been a leading demographic loser.

According to newly released Census Bureau population estimates[1]:

• Roughly 12 out of every 1,000 New York residents moved elsewhere in the country between mid-2005 and mid-2006-nearly double the overall rate of out-migration for the slow-growing Northeast region.
• New York’s loss of 225,766 people to other states between 2005 and 2006 was exceeded only by the out-migration totals for California and hurricane-ravaged Louisiana.
• More than 1.2 million New York residents have moved to other states since 2000-the biggest such loss experienced by any state.

As shown in Figure 1, an influx of foreign immigrants and the “natural” gain from births largely offset New York’s internal migration exodus in the past six years, allowing the population to rise slightly, to about 19.3 million. But the state has been growing at less than one-third the national rate in this decade. As a result, the Empire State is on track to slip from third to fourth in state population rankings within a few years.

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ENDNOTES

1. All of the Census Bureau data cited in this report can be found at http://www.census.gov/popest/estimates.php.

2. Where are all the New Yorkers going? Separate Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data point to Florida and New Jersey as leading destinations, followed by Connecticut and by other southern states.

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