Native Floridians tend to stay here, report says
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Florida has a reputation as a northern transplant and retirement mecca, but new data shows the we are also full of Florida natives.
Driving the news: The Sunshine State is among the top 10 states in which people born here still lived here as of 2021, according to a new Dallas Fed report that measures state "stickiness."
- About 73% of Floridians stay here, making it the sixth stickiest state. Texas, where 82% of residents stay, held the top spot. North Carolina, Georgia, California and Utah followed.
- Wyoming came in at the other end of the spectrum — more than half of those native residents have moved away.
Why it matters: A higher rate of stickiness signals a healthy economy and job growth, the report says, which were also factors in why Florida saw such a population boom during the height of the pandemic.
- The metric can also signal more affordable housing, which could explain why the Northeast tends to have lower stickiness rates, per the report.
Yes, but: Soaring housing costs, driven in part by a failing home insurance market, have forced some Floridians to relocate.
Plus: State policies restricting health care and public life for LGBTQ+ Floridians, especially transgender people, have also pushed out some residents.
- The exact number is hard to capture, but a recent Human Rights Coalition survey found one in three LGBTQ+ and 80% of transgender Floridians either want to move or have made plans to do so.
Zoom out: Florida's overall out migration rate is 14th compared to other states at about 21 per 1,000 residents, according to the report. That metric takes into account both natives and people who moved here from somewhere else.
- Texas was once again ranked highest, with a rate of just 15 per 1,000 residents.