In the first year of the pandemic, many U.S. cities experienced unusually large flows of inward and outward migration as remote work opened up the opportunity to work from anywhere.
San Francisco is among the urban centers that experienced an unprecedented decline in population during this period. From 2020 to 2021, SF’s population dropped to its lowest level since 2010, erasing a decade of population growth in a single year. Similar changes took place in major cities across the country. New York, Washington, DC and Boston each experienced an outsized emigration during this period.
The Internal Revenue Service not only collects Americans’ taxes, they also publish the best, most detailed information about where Americans are moving. The numbers will take some time to come through – we’re just finally getting stats for 2021 – but they’re a treasure trove. The data is based on the mailing address provided on tax returns filed with the IRS for the 2020-21 tax year. The annual changes in an applicant’s address are used by the IRS to determine if an individual has moved. The agency then publishes data on the total number of moves between any two counties and their total income.
Figures show that many moved to the surrounding suburbs. But other, less common travel destinations also saw increases in immigration in the first year of the pandemic, with some counties moving in more than twice as many as in previous years.
For example, the most common travel destinations for San Franciscans leaving the country in 2020–21 were predominantly other counties in California. Of the top 10 destinations for SF relocation, nine are in California and six are in the Bay Area.
Contrary to the narrative of a San Francisco-Austin pipeline, about 1,000 San Francisco residents relocated to Austin’s Travis County between 2020 and 2021, accounting for just 1.5% of San Francisco’s relocations that year. Nonetheless, it is a notable increase in the number of San Franciscans making this particular move. Between 2015 and 2020, the average migration between these counties was about 660 people per year, which is almost 60% less than the number that moved in 2020–21.
Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties saw the largest increases in the number of SF moves, up 120% and 107%, respectively, from the annual average over the past five years.
Curious about where people from your county have moved to? Search for your county in the interactive display below to see the top origins and destinations for people moving in and out of your county between 2020 and 2021.
Many counties on California’s coast and Pacific Northwest have seen unusually large outflows during the pandemic, while counties in the south and in the mountain states in general have seen above-average immigration.
For example, emigration from Bay Area counties was far higher than the average over the past five years. San Francisco and Alameda counties saw the largest changes in the region, with 14% more people moving during that time than the annual average between 2015 and 2020. Indeed, for San Francisco, this is the second year in a row that a large number of people undressed . Between 2019 and 2020, more than 77,000 people left the county, about 6,600 more than in 2020-21.
In addition to migration data, the IRS also publishes the total reported income of people moving between counties. Using this information, we calculated the Net Income Change for each county – the difference in the total income of people moving into the county and those moving out. We also calculated the average household income of movers by dividing the total income by the number of tax returns filed per county.
Net income changes largely follow net migration trends. Counties with population increases in 2020–21 typically saw income gains, while counties with overall population declines generally experienced income losses. For example, New York County’s population fell by 63,000 people in 2020–21, resulting in a net income loss of $16.5 billion. Meanwhile, Palm Beach County, Florida, added 12,000 more people than it took away, and total income increased by $7 billion.
An exception to the rule is Miami-Dade County, Florida. Despite a population drop of 29,000 people, those moving to Miami-Dade reported higher income ($10.4 billion total) than those moving away ($3.9 billion) — a difference of 6.5 billion dollars. On average, households moving into the county reported income of $230,000, while households moving away reported $66,000.
The opposite happened in San Francisco – residents who left tended to be more affluent than those who moved in or stayed. The median household income of those who moved out in 2020–21 was $240,000, which was $100,000 more than the median income for newcomers and about $40,000 more than the median income for people who stayed in the city .
Where did these wealthy SF residents go? Some of the richest traveled to Utah’s Summit County, an area known for popular ski resorts like Park City and Deer Valley. The average income of the 51 households that moved there between 2020 and 2021 was $1.1 million.
Two Bay Area counties were among the top ten counties with the wealthiest migrants from San Francisco. Napa County was number two, with the 266 SF households that moved into the county having an average household income of $660,000. Marin County ranked fifth, with the average mover reporting household income of $400,000.
The counties to which the lowest-income San Franciscans moved tended to be lower-cost counties in California. Kern, Merced, and Stanislaus counties had the lowest-income migrants from San Francisco.
It’s important to note that the IRS data only provides total income, so it’s possible that some of the outliers are due to a particularly wealthy household moving from one county to another. We only included cases where at least 50 households moved between counties to account for this, but a very wealthy family could still skew the results.
Dig deep into the numbers with the SFChronicle data team as your guide.
