Are Americans Really Not Moving?

Talent attraction programs and incentives have become a major priority for many states and regions. On the surface, this is a no-brainer strategy given America’s aging demographics and growing labor shortages in critical industries. 

But do these programs make sense if Americans are stuck—if they're not moving and not switching jobs?

The Wall Street Journal reported last week on how mobility has stalled, as fewer people move for jobs and fewer people move between jobs. This declining dynamism, fueled in part by a stagnant housing market, spells trouble for the economy. 

However, there’s an important part of this data story that the WSJ didn’t articulate in its article, one that’s relevant to communities and companies hustling to recruit out-of-state workers.

Notice the bottom two lines of this WSJ chart. While the share of total American movers is most definitely down, two core segments of movers (those going to different states or different counties) are actually holding pretty steady the last few decades, per the Census’ Current Population Survey.

We’ve been diving into these trends as we researched the soon-to-be-released 2025 Talent Attraction Scorecard, our annual ranking of states and regions on how well they develop and attract workers. Instead of CPS data, we used data from the American Community Survey, which shows the number of interstate movers is actually up over the last 15 years. 

Even for prime-age movers, the mobility rate has increased.

The ACS data includes people who moved from a different state or from abroad. So it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison to the CPS data that the WSJ used in its reporting. That said, the story holds: People moving from a different state or abroad is actually quite consistent—and even increased from 2011 to 2023.

So, yes, overall geographic mobility is down, but focus on the type of talent attraction that’s relevant to economic development (recruiting people from other states) and the mobility story is different. In fact, since 2011, the prime-age population moving between states in a given year has increased by over 300,000 people—enough to populate a whole new metropolitan area. 

The bottom line: Declining dynamism in the labor market is a concern, but plenty of workers are looking for new opportunities in other states. They may be looking to move back closer to family or searching for a more affordable city or want a stronger quality of life, but they’re out there. It’s up to states and regions and companies to make a compelling case to recruit these workers. 

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