More People Still Leaving Virginia than Moving In

Source: StatChat blog

Virginia has experienced its fourth consecutive year of domestic out-migration, reports Hamilton Lombard with the University of Virginia’s demographic research group in its StatChat blog. Prior to 2013, Virginia had never experienced a year of out-migration since the Internal Revenue Service began collecting data in 1978. (The data is based on address changes for households filing income taxes.) Virginia’s population is still growing thanks to a surplus of births over deaths, but the growth rate has slowed from 80,000 a year in the 2000s to 50,000 for the past four years.

Lombard attributes the out-migration largely to the impact of sequestration-related cutbacks to defense spending on the economy in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. He also suggests that the high cost of Northern Virginia housing may play a factor in the exodus.

While Virginia still experiences net in-migration from traditional feeder states in the Northeast, it is exporting population to fast-growth Sunbelt cities. The largest cohort of immigrants is in the 26- to 35-year-old age range, although Lombard expects to see a growing number of retirees leaving the state for lower-tax climes.