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/Worried-Ebb8051 4d ago

Love the regional categorization approach!

The Austin vs Miami contrast is striking - both "hot" markets but completely different trajectories. Austin's plateau might reflect the tech correction and remote work normalization, while Miami's continued growth suggests lifestyle migration is more durable than job-driven moves. The Southeast's dominance really reinforces the "no state income tax" migration theory. Would be interesting to see this correlated with housing affordability metrics.

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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/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.