Opinion: Leaving California

Having trouble making ends meet? Finding it impossible to purchase that starter house that is so important in building wealth for your retirement? Here’s the solution that many of your neighbors have found: Leave California.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), “Over the past 25 years California has had its slowest rates of population growth ever recorded.” Why? Residents are moving to other states, a “trend that remains near record levels, despite having abated somewhat since the pandemic,” according to the Hans Johnson and Eric McGhee, writing for the PPIC’s newsletter. They point out that California was once the “epicenter” of population growth, and the extent of that expansion increased the state’s power to pull in migrants from the rest of the nation.

Unlimited growth and potential

Writing toward the end of the nineteenth century, Lord James Bryce — known as the “unofficial interpreter of the United States to Great Britain” — wrote that California was “in many respects the most striking state in the whole Union, and (it) has more than any other the character of a great country, capable of standing alone in the world.” He was impressed by the state’s great variety of social and economic possibilities: minerals, giant forests, fertile soil, and an “ambitious citizenry.” For his time, those were the elements that an independent nation needed in order to achieve greatness.

Europeans first visited in California in 1542, when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo put to shore in what is now San Diego. He continued his journey up the coast but decided that the area was a “forbidding wilderness,” according to Pat Hunter and Janice Stevens, authors of Remembering the California Missions. Sixty years passed before Sebastian Vizcaino explored the area around Monterey Bay. But, still, Spain saw little reason to establish settlements in this northern portion of Mexico. Finally, in 1769 Gaspar de Portola brought Jesuit missionaries to the San Diego area to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. But it was a Franciscan, Junipero Serra, who built the first nine of California’s 21 missions, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco.

Throughout the next century, the area attracted relatively few settlers from the United States. By 1848, there were fewer than 15,000 residents of European ancestry in the state and only about 100,000 Native Americans. That year, two important events occurred that would propel California’s population: the discovery of gold and the signing of the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, which ended the war with Mexico and ceded a huge portion of land, including California, to the United States.

Two years later (1850), California became a state, and its population (not counting Native Americans) grew to 93,000. During the next decade, the Golden State experience a growth rate of 245 percent. It had over a million residents 1890; more than 2 million in 1910; nearly 3.5 million in 1920; and it continued to grow. In 1960, with close to 16 million residents, it surpassed New York as the nation’s most populous state. According to our last official census (2020), California had more than 39.5 million people.

Exodus

Throughout all those decades, California grew both by an excess of births over deaths and in-migrants over out-migrants. However, the year 2000 was the last year that more people moved into California than moved out to other states. The exodus began slowly, but in 2004 100,000 Californians left the state. That more than doubled the following year. Out-migration has been significant every year since the turn of the 21st century, reaching a peak (or, if you will, a valley) in 2021 of about 375,000.

Nevertheless, people still move to California. But the 7 million people who moved here from other states between 2010 and 2024 resulted in a net loss of population because about 10 million people moved out of state. Johnson and McGhee point out that “California used to gain college graduates even as it lost less educated adults. But in the last few years, the state has started losing college graduates as well….”

Still, California has a surfeit of college graduates, as well as high-income people. According to the PPIC, “While the migration of higher-income and more highly educated households is notable, their departures are still relatively small in proportion to their share in the state as a whole.” During the past ten years, 165,000 higher-income adults and 75,000 college graduates have left California. That is less than two percent of higher-income adults and less than one percent of college graduates in the state.

Johnson and McGhee point out, “In contrast, the departure of lower-income adults is much more substantial, with a net loss of 532,000 adults over the past ten years. That’s approximately one of every ten current low-income state residents. For the most part, these people cite employment, housing, or family as the primary reason for moving elsewhere. According to the Current Population Survey, in 2015 California had a net loss of nearly 900,000 people who cited housing as the major reason for moving.

The Institute authors point out, “The PPIC Statewide Survey finds that 34 percent of Californians have seriously considered leaving the state because of high housing costs, and 21 percent have thought of leaving because of the lack of well-paying jobs.” Politics may also play a role in making the decision to leave. The biggest political contingent in the state is Democrat; the second biggest is independent. Republicans constitute only about 30 percent of registered voters. The survey reveals that “conservatives are more likely to contemplate leaving the state than liberals, and Republicans are much more likely to leave than Democrats.”

While frustrations with conditions and policies in California are many, housing — by far — seems to the primary impetus for moving elsewhere. Between 2004 and 2014, 251,000 left the state because of the cost of housing. Between 2015 and 2025, 884,000 left the Golden State for that reason. It would seem that, if the state wants to maintain its status as the ideal location for families, it needs to address all these issues, probably starting with the cost of housing.

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Jim Glynn is Professor Emeritus of Sociology. He may be contacted at j_glynn@att.net.