Millennials
moved out of state but that accounted for only 1.1% of young adults from Chicago, according to an interactive data tool that accompanies the study.
Where young adults moved to varied by race.
Atlanta was the most popular destination for young Black adults moving away from their hometowns, followed by Houston and Washington. Young Black adults who grew up in high-income households were multiple times more likely to move to these cities
in a “New Great Migration” than those from lowincome families, according to the study.
For White adults leaving their hometowns, New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Denver were the most population destinations. L.A. and New York were the top two destinations for Asians and Latino young adults. San Antonio and Phoenix also were popular with Latinos, and San Francisco also appealed to Asian young adults.
Despite the region’s economic woes and the prospect of job opportunities elsewhere, young adults in Appalachia were less likely to move far from their hometowns
compared to those of similar incomes living elsewhere, the report said.
The reluctance of millennials to move far away is backed up by recent studies showing declines in mobility in the U.S. for the overall population.
In the middle of the last century, about a fifth of U.S. residents, not just young adults, moved each year. That figure has dropped steadily since the 1950s, going from about 20% to 8.4% last year, due to an aging population, dual-income households that make it more difficult to pick up and move and, more recently, the pandemic, according to a recent report
from Brookings.
A Pew Research Center survey released last week showed that 25% of U.S. adults ages 25-34 resided in a multigenerational family household in 2021, up from 9% in 1971. The age groups in the Pew study and the study by the Census Bureau and Harvard University researchers overlap a bit.
When there were wage gains in a local labor market, most of the benefits went to residents who grew up within 100 miles rather than people who had migrated to the area. Wage increases’ effect on migration to an area was rather small, and migrants likely would have moved there regardless
of wage hikes. Young Black adults were less likely to move to a place because of wage hikes compared to white and Latino millennials, said the study released Monday.
Waldholtz, who is White, graduated into the recession in 2008 and went back to Virginia Beach for work. “Probably the worst time ever to be looking for a job,” he said. He eventually went to law school in Ohio and prioritized work opportunities when deciding where to live after graduation three years later.
“All of us need a job to pay our bills,” Waldholtz said. “That factor has to be the most important factor.”