r/dataisbeautiful • u/TA-MajestyPalm • 4d ago

OC [OC] Post-Pandemic Population Growth Trends, by US Metro Area (2022->2024)

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Graphic by me, created in Excel. All data from US Census here: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-total-metro-and-micro-statistical-areas.html

I've created similar graphics in the past, but usually from 2020-2024. This is not the best time frame as it combines the abnormal covid years with post pandemic movement.

This time frame (2022-2024) shows the most current and ongoing population trends of the last 2 years.

I also wanted to better categorize the cities into broad cultural regions vs the arbitrary geographic census regions.

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u/JD_Waterston 3d ago edited 3d ago

I agree that I’ve heard a lot of people discuss income taxes when choosing locations, whereas few discuss property or sales taxes.

To be clear, it still is generally true that the south has a lower tax burden - but the variation is much less pronounced. For instance going from Michigan to Florida likely increases your tax burden - https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state-2022/ and the range from 10th to 40th is 9-12% - so most are pretty narrowly aligned, although outliers moving from New York to Alaska would be a profound tax savings.

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u/FoolishChemist 3d ago

Don't forget house insurance costs as well. Michigan you can get it pretty easily, but in Florida, you better just hope a hurricane doesn't blow your house away.

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u/ibled_orange 3d ago

My parents looked into moving from NY to Florida and yes they'd save on income tax but their car insurance expense alone would cause their cost of living to be higher.

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u/davegraham71 3d ago

Also really depends on what income bracket you are in. If I remember correctly I think if you are in like the lower 2/3 (maybe half - old and bad memory) of income then your Texas all in taxes are higher than CA.

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u/JD_Waterston 3d ago

Very true - and a lot of ‘low tax’ states have higher registration and licensure costs. But if you’re making millions, then income taxes play a larger role. Kinda funny that a lot of folks who move also retire, when income plays the smallest role and other taxes the largest.

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u/gsfgf 3d ago

and a lot of ‘low tax’ states have higher registration and licensure costs

Yea. When 2008 hit, and Georgia ran out of reserves, we couldn't "raise taxes" or else Grover Norquist would get mad. So we raised "fees" instead.

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u/Wanderingghost12 3d ago

Washington has no income tax and Oregon/Montana have no sales tax, but that doesn't seem to stop it from being super expensive here but both PNW states are far behind the growth of FL/TX

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u/gsfgf 3d ago

Yea. I'm in Atlanta. I assume that if the stage GOP actually does eliminate the state income tax, I'll end up paying more. APS will have to raise property taxes to offset cuts from the state.

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u/MW_Daught 3d ago

Yes, in theory, tax burden is comparable ... but only for average/median incomes. If you're looking to move for tax reasons in the first place, chances are you have heap of income and for that purpose, states with no income tax are king.

I personally avoided having to pay California around $1.1m in taxes since I relocated to Florida 4 years ago. My property tax is barely $20k or thereabouts, which is almost irrelevant, and sales tax is even less. If I moved to another state that had medium income tax/no property tax or whatnot, the burden would still be substantially higher.

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u/JD_Waterston 3d ago edited 3d ago

A lot of people who make 250k(or even 50k) still move for taxes, if for questionable reasons - for high incomes the situation may be different, but yeah if you make extreme amounts it’s potentially different.

Also, if you saved 1.1 in 4 years - you’re talking about 3m/yr in income - which puts you in a percentile which isn’t relevant for population movement statistics. You’re basically an edge case.

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u/CiDevant 3d ago

I wish I could find a way to explain that to my Dad.  The way he talks you think he only moved to Florida for the Taxes.  Also his public school grandkids there are dumb as rocks compared to his grandkids who are either in private schools or other state public schools.  It's honestly really sad to see where my nephew / neices are developmentally compared to my kids and my other brothers kids.

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u/bobbybouchier 2d ago

Florida is ranked pretty high amongst US states in public school education?

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u/CiDevant 1d ago

According to World Report 41st and NEA 42nd isn't very high IMO.  But thanks for making me actually check my work.

Because I did see some "reports" that listed it much higher I looked at average college entrances exam scores and Forbes ranks FL 30th when looking at all test scores in 2024.

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u/bobbybouchier 1d ago

I suppose the wide variance between reports is attributable to how each report weights their metrics. US news & Reports ranks them 10th in K-12.