Why Do People Move? 

The most common reason for moving has remained housing since 1998, however, this is also the reason with the largest decrease during the measured time period. Though all categories of reasons for moving decreased during this time period, the "other" category decreased the least. 

Of the "other" reasons for domestic moves, "relationship with unmarried partner" and "natural disaster" were added as new sub-categories between 2000 and 2020 - the former being a quite popular reason for moving and likely contributing to the relative lack of shrinkage in this category.  It is also worth noting that the percentage of people in this category moving for "change of climate" actually decreased in this time period. 

In both 2010 and 2020, more young adults moved across states than any other age group. In 2020, 24.1% of people moving to a different state were between the ages of 25 to 34 (compared to just 13.6% of the total U.S. population); and 22.3% were between the ages of 18 to 24 (compared to 9.7%).

Between 2010 and 2020, there was a slight increase in the the percentage of domestic migrants over the age of 55, though this is in line with larger population trends. 

When looking at individual income of domestic migrants moving to a different states, we see interesting changes occurring between 2010 and 2020. In 2010, the largest income group of people moving were those making less than $10,000 (30%); by 2020, it had switched to people making over $75,000. Less than $10,000 remained the second largest income group in 2020, at 20%. Thus we see that very high and very low income groups are moving across states in the highest numbers. 

Although in 2010 and 2020 the majority of domestic migrants moving to a different state were white, the percentage of white movers was less than that of the total white population in the U.S.  In both years, we see that  Black and Asian populations are moving at a higher rate than their share of the total U.S. population.