America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers

Many believed the spike in home-based work associated with the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to greater geographic mobility. Instead, the number of domestic movers in the United States declined from 2019 to 2021.

The percentage of people in the United States who moved in the previous year declined from about 14% to roughly 13%, according to the 2019 and 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates.

These data reference where people lived one year prior to 2019 and 2021. Because the 2021 period includes moves that may have occurred prior to the start of the pandemic in March 2020, comparisons between 2019 and 2021 may not reflect the full impact of the pandemic on mover rates.

While these findings do not align exactly with the popular narrative that the ability to work remotely would increase mobility, they do not outright discount it. At the national scale, moves to some states did increase between 2019 and 2021, suggesting a more nuanced and less sweeping narrative.

Continue reading?to learn more about:

• Types of moves
• Moves across areas
• Regional moves

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