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Americans Are No Longer on the Move
Townhall.com ^ | December 30, 2016 | Michael Barone

Posted on 12/30/2016 1:09:50 PM PST by Kaslin

Americans see themselves as people on the move. When the going gets tough or when opportunity beckons, we get up and go. We move around a lot.

Actually, we don't -- or don't nearly so much as we used to. The percentage of Americans moving every year is less than half that of a half-century ago and down significantly since the early 1990s.

Some of that decline is a response to the economic cycle. Contrary to widespread impression, mobility tends to decline in bad economic times. The Okies moving from the Dust Bowl to the Central Valley of California made a big impression in the 1930s because they were the exception, not the rule. Most Americans stayed put and ate vegetables raised in their gardens or window boxes, making do as best they could.

The vast movements to the western frontier had ended decades earlier, and farm-to-factory migration went on pause. Foreign immigration was almost nonexistent, even below the low quotas set in the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924.

Then, during World War II, Americans moved around a lot, serving in the military, working in defense plants, leaving behind farm counties whose population peaked in the 1940 census.

It became a habit. In the postwar years, millions of whites moved to California, the golden state they had seen in the war and the movies, while one-third of American blacks moved from the segregated rural South to what they believed was "the promised land" of northern industrial cities.

You can see in the statistics similar movement away from the Rust Belt in response to factory closings during the recessions of 1979-83. Laid-off autoworkers in Detroit bought copies of the Sunday Houston Chronicle to scan help wanted ads. Steelworkers in Pittsburgh and coal miners in West Virginia rented U-Hauls for points south and west.

You haven't seen similar mobility in the slow-growth years of this century. There is heavy domestic outmigration from high-cost, high-immigration metro New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to the interior. But people in the Rust Belt have been staying put.

To understand why, read Ron Bailey's riveting Dec. 10 article for Reason, titled "Stuck," about his family's ancestral home in McDowell County, West Virginia. It was the nation's No. 1 coal-producing county in 1950, when the Baileys left. Many others did, too; McDowell County's population declined from 98,000 in 1950 to 22,000 in 2010.

But few people are leaving now -- even though those who remain are in miserable shape. McDowell County has the lowest male life expectancy of any American county, and it has a high percentage of heroin addiction. Only about half of children are raised in two-parent families.

It also has a very high dependency on government. As Bailey reports, nearly 47 percent of personal income comes from Social Security, disability insurance (some 9 percent of West Virginia adults get disability payments), food stamps and other federal programs. McDowell County is a prime example of the dysfunctional communities that have caused the increase, identified by economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case, in mortality rates of middle-aged white Americans.

Government benefits, even federal benefits, are not readily transferable and tend to keep beneficiaries stuck in place. They often can't obtain jobs in growth areas because of occupational licensing laws or drug testing, and they aren't interested in competing for jobs with low-wage immigrants jammed into expensive housing in coastal metro areas.

Labor market economic theory posits that workers will move to jobs. But history teaches that mobility is not just a matter of economic calculation. For most people, staying put is the default mode. They only take the unusual step of moving to pursue dreams or escape nightmares.

And they don't move where they think they are not wanted. Only 2 million black and white Southerners moved to the higher-pay North between 1865 and 1940, even as 30 million European immigrants streamed there. Southerners considered the North a nightmarishly alien territory; Europeans sought escape from the nightmare of second-class status in multiethnic empires.

The World War II experience convinced a generation or two of Americans that they could realize their dreams by getting up and going. But the war ended 71 years ago, and the postwar years are dimming in the rearview mirror. Some Americans are still on the move. But many are stuck in nightmare settings that they seem unable to escape.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bhoeconomy; trends
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1 posted on 12/30/2016 1:09:50 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

The leftist oligarchs and statists are winning.


2 posted on 12/30/2016 1:11:28 PM PST by PGR88
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To: Kaslin

PRESIDENT TRUMP will make AMERICA move again!


3 posted on 12/30/2016 1:16:30 PM PST by stars & stripes forever (Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Psalm 33:12)
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To: Kaslin

My family moved from California to Wyoming and we’ve never looked back. Aside from the summer time when you see Yellowstone tourists around here we don’t get much traffic and you just don’t feel the anxiety that you feel in a crowded, busy, hectic, Democrat/crime infested city.


4 posted on 12/30/2016 1:24:00 PM PST by MeganC (Hate crime: The heinous act of disagreeing with a liberal.)
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To: Kaslin

People with no money - which describes the vast majority of Americans these days - can’t move anywhere.


5 posted on 12/30/2016 1:27:14 PM PST by thoughtomator (Purple: the color of sedition)
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To: stars & stripes forever

Hopefully the jobs will come back to small town America.


6 posted on 12/30/2016 1:28:50 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Conservatives love America for what it is. Liberals hate America for the same reason.)
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To: Kaslin

Moving is expensive. It costs as much to move your ‘stuff’ as to buy new stuff.

Best deal I ever made was selling a condo and including the furniture & appliances - to a young single guy.

Looking back over 40 years, I counted 10 moves - mostly within 3 States. The motivation was job opportunities for the spouse and later to be closer to family. Gets tougher with age and always good to have family members who can help.


7 posted on 12/30/2016 1:42:49 PM PST by sodpoodle (Life is prickly - carry tweezers.)
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To: Kaslin
Unless you have a job to move to, you are better off staying put.

If you can not sell your house for more then you owe or the bank has approved a short sale, you are better off staying put.

If you don't have the money to move, you are better off staying put.

And then there are the emotional reason for not moving.

Am I making what I could if I moved to Texas? No.

But I would have to sell the house, sell the business and leave all my family behind to move to Texas. At our age the financial return would minimal over a ten year span and that would be ten years where I would see my parents once a year rather then weekly. At their ages that is not acceptable.

My mom was just in and out of the hospital recently. I was able to be with her and help my dad. Can't do that if I'm half the country away.

I prefer to clip some coupons and grow a bigger garden. Your mileage may vary.

8 posted on 12/30/2016 1:44:26 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Not a Romantic, not a hero worshiper and stop trying to tug my heartstrings. It tickles! (pink bow))
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Florida added over 300,000 people this year, now the third most populous state, exceeding New York. Texas added almost a half million. New York, California, Mass experienced outwards migrations.

Yes, people are still moving, starting new jobs and businesses, escaping heavily statist leftist areas.


9 posted on 12/30/2016 1:47:54 PM PST by rstrahan
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To: Kaslin

Who can afford to?


10 posted on 12/30/2016 1:50:23 PM PST by Organic Panic (Rich White Man Evicts Poor Black Family From Public Housing - MSNBCPBSCNNNYTABC)
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To: rstrahan

Yes people are moving but you might want to check again on them being “Americans”. Unless you mean Central and South Americans.


11 posted on 12/30/2016 1:53:53 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Not a Romantic, not a hero worshiper and stop trying to tug my heartstrings. It tickles! (pink bow))
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To: stars & stripes forever

Including the 90 million jobless Americans who have lost hope. Make America energy independent — that’ll immediately move America in the right direction.


12 posted on 12/30/2016 2:01:31 PM PST by 353FMG (AMERICA IS ALL THAT TRULY MATTERS)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

“...where I would see my parents once a year rather then weekly. At their ages that is not acceptable.

Good for you. Enjoy them (and keep helping them) while they are here. Both of my parents have passed away, and I miss them every day!


13 posted on 12/30/2016 2:20:17 PM PST by Cedar
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To: Kaslin

Because the country has lost millions of decent-paying jobs! Who would move for a low-paying job! Nice going, bammy!


14 posted on 12/30/2016 2:22:36 PM PST by I want the USA back (Lying Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country.)
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To: rstrahan

“New York, California, Mass experienced outwards -——”


A lot of that may be the high cost of housing in those areas.

.


15 posted on 12/30/2016 2:28:40 PM PST by Mears
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To: Cedar
I am sorry for your loss.

Having your dad call you telling you not to worry but he had to take mom into the ER is a wake up call to how short time can be.

They have always been healthy and while I worried about them some when they were on missions assignment overseas I didn't really come face to face with the bone chilling fear that I could lose them until last month.

The only way I am moving is if they move and they are not planning on moving. Not when they have just gotten the house exactly as they like it. :)

16 posted on 12/30/2016 2:39:30 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Not a Romantic, not a hero worshiper and stop trying to tug my heartstrings. It tickles! (pink bow))
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To: rstrahan
I left the once-Golden-State a couple of years ago for a "red" state.

Now, if only we could keep the Californians out.

17 posted on 12/30/2016 3:27:56 PM PST by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never...except for convictions of honour and good sense. W. Churchill)
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To: Kaslin

People move for various reasons. Not all of them are economic.

I’ve noted many people here on Free Republic, for example, who bemoan the social/political/economic climate where they live. Then when someone asks why don’t they move, they cite issues such as family, or how they have a particular type of job which would be hard to find, or how they have lifelong friends or connections of other kinds to their community, or how some favorite regional foods they love just aren’t found in some other parts of the country.

There are clearly many factors involved in deciding to pick up and move somewhere.


18 posted on 12/30/2016 3:41:25 PM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Kaslin

Wanna bet? Just come to TX and see them moving here by the dozens. California is the new Texas license plate.


19 posted on 12/30/2016 3:44:28 PM PST by Hattie
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To: Dilbert San Diego

Excellent point.


20 posted on 12/30/2016 3:45:07 PM PST by Kaslin (Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible)
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