Report: Over 500,000 Americans Fled California Since 2020

Over half a million people have left California since 2020 due to factors like high housing prices, frequent natural disasters such as wildfires and mudslides, and the high rates of crime in cities, according to migration data from the US Census.

The Daily Mail reported Saturday that roughly 508,000 people left the Golden State between April 2020 and July 2022. San Francisco County and Lassen County saw the largest population decline at 7.1% and 7.5%, respectively. Lassen County was hit by the massive Dixie wildfire in 2021.

The state’s housing affordability crisis is one of the key factors leading to the exodus, according to H.D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs at the California Department of Finance. In Sacramento, for example, the median-priced house in the region requires a household salary of around $145,000, while the average income is no more than $71,000.

In San Francisco, which many tech industry executives abandoned due to the pandemic, many office spaces stand empty, and violent drug addicts have taken over some neighborhoods. The city’s high increases in homelessness and crime have negatively impacted the “quality of life ambiance” the downtown once offered.

Mass layoffs across the tech industry, which now exceed 130,000 positions, have led middle-class workers to move. However, 19 of California’s 58 counties have seen population growth, mainly inland counties with lower housing costs. San Benito, located just south of the Bay Area, was the fastest-growing county, according to census data.