Why do People Leave New York City?

In the most recent two years, New York City’s population has been growing. But this follows a decade of declining population. In our view, it’s more likely than not that—once post-pandemic migration patterns and surging international arrivals settle down—the city begins to shrink again.

On the eve of a new mayor taking office, Home Economics has been writing about whether public policy can stem these outflows.

In part one of this series we identified the source of declining population (net domestic outflows exceeding net international inflows) and found that those who are leaving the city are younger, better educated, and have higher incomes and fewer children than those who stay.

That said, the characteristics of leavers varies substantially by destination. Figure 1 for example shows that the people who move from New York City to Florida are on average 15 years older than those who move to Massachusetts, while those who move to Connecticut earn $58K more than those who move to South Carolina.

Age and Income vary by destination

In this second part of the series, we leverage Census Bureau data^a that specifically asks people who emigrated over the prior year why they moved. By filtering for those who moved from the 5 boroughs of New York City, we can form a clear view of the specific factors driving people away. We draw 3 broad conclusions from the data.

The majority of emigrants stay close-by

A lot of the discourse around NYC’s population decline centers on interstate migration—around questions like, for example, are New Yorkers leaving to states that have done a better job building housing?

But in fact 82% of emigrants from the city stay in the local area. Long Island (east of the city) and Westchester (north of the city) are the most common destinations.

The top five counties receiving NYC emigrants are Westchester (36% of local migrants), Nassau (33%), and Suffolk (31%). The most popular areas at a more granular geography are North Shore (15%), Huntington South (13%), Hempstead North (12%), Hempstead Central (11%), and Oyster Bay (10%).

Local movers map

Not all emigrants are the same

Both local and interstate migrants are younger, more educated and have fewer kids than those who stay. But there are substantial differences between the two groups: those who move interstate are even more educated and have even fewer kids than those who move locally (see Figure 2).

Among adults 25 and older, 50% of interstate movers hold a bachelor’s degree compared to 40% of local movers and just 38% of those who stay. Similarly, only 22% of interstate movers have children, versus 33% of local movers and 38% of stayers.

Counterintuitively, the likelihood of moving out of the city—even to the suburbs—drops with the number of children.

Stayers, local leavers, interstate compared

Local movers leave for housing, interstate movers leave for jobs

Fortunately, we needn’t merely read between the lines of the data—who is moving, to where, etc—to ascertain why they are leaving. A little discussed data set collected by the Census Bureau—the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) within the Current Population Survey (CPS)—specifically asks respondents who moved in the past year why they relocated. Categories include job-related reasons (new job, job transfer, looking for work), housing reasons (wanted better housing, cheaper housing), family reasons (change in marital status, to establish own household), and other reasons.

Because the ASEC sample sizes are small, we tabulate data over a long period of time (1999-2025) to build up reliable sample sizes^b. We visualize the results below in figure 3.

Reasons for leaving

Because housing-related reasons dominate the decision to move away from New York City for those who leave for nearby areas, and because those ‘local leavers’ outnumber interstate leavers 4 to 1, housing is, overall, the main reason New York City is losing population.

Finally, because the CPS data includes the location people moved to, we can cross-reference the reason for moving with the destination. Some interesting findings fall out of the data:

• New Jersey and Connecticut attract housing-seekers as well, with “wanted to own, not rent” and “better housing” topping the list.
• Massachusetts stands out: 28% of NYers who moved there did so for college—the highest share of any major destination.
• California and Texas are job magnets, with 40% and 36% respectively citing employment as their primary reason for relocating.
• Florida is the climate destination: 16% moved for “change of climate,” tied with family reasons as the top motivator.

Conclusions

The data suggest that if policymakers want to stem outmigration, housing is the lever most within their control. The vast majority of NYC emigrants aren’t fleeing to Texas or Florida—they’re moving to Long Island and Westchester, citing housing as their primary motivation. These are not people who have given up on the New York metro area; they’re people who want more space, want to own rather than rent, or simply want a better home than they can afford in the five boroughs.

Interstate movers are a different story. They tend to be younger, more educated, and childless—and they leave primarily for jobs. This cohort is harder to retain through housing policy alone; their departures reflect the pull of opportunity elsewhere rather than the push of inadequate housing.

The policy implication is straightforward: New York City cannot compete with booming job markets in other cities or Miami’s climate. But Zoran Mamdani is right to focus on retaining those who struggle with the cost of housing. The four out of five emigrants from New York City who stay local are, in effect, still rooting for New York—they just need a place to live.

1. The CPS ASEC[↩]
2. Of course, this also means that we are not able to pick up trends over time. For example, if housing became a more important reason for moving over time, this would not be apparent in our analysis[↩]