Americans are moving at half the rate they used to — why?

The factors that have coalesced to keep millions of Americans from switching towns, counties, and states.

8/18/25 8:48AM

If you’ve made the exciting (stressful) decision to pack up your life and move in the past few years, it turns out you’re very much in the minority, with Americans increasingly staying put in modern times.

Moving’s out

According to yearly figures from the Current Population Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau and reported in The Wall Street Journal last week, domestic migration rates are hovering near all-time recorded lows after just 7.9% of Americans switched towns or cities last year. That’s fewer than half of the 16.7% who were on the move in 1994, as the share of people relocating even within the same county plummeted from 10.4% 30 years ago to a little over 4% now.

So, what happened?

Homeowners being “locked in” to their current houses isn’t helping, as the prospect of trading in the generous mortgage rate they may have picked up around the pandemic for the current ~7% level proves, understandably, unappealing. But mortgage rates were high in the past too, suggesting more fundamental influences are also at play.

Wider societal shifts like the rise of dual-income households and an aging population have also weighed on US dynamism, given the complications of having to factor two careers into big relocation decisions and the fact that we tend to move less as we get older.

Technology, meanwhile, has made the ability to work remotely more feasible, fraying the cord that required people to move to get closer to their office jobs. Disproportionately higher rents in the likes of LA, New York, and Miami may also be discouraging people from moving to some of America’s most sought-after cities.

Furthermore, research suggests that wage differentials between states have generally been getting smaller, a megatrend that’s been evident in the US since the late 1800s, reducing the incentive to move in some cases. It’s rarely now a local labor market — often it’s a national, or even an international, one.

The current work environment is likely a major short-term factor figuring in decisions, too. After quitting rates boomed in 2021, many employees are now hanging on to their jobs, per the Journal, as the job market slows and the outlook for grads and people looking to forge a new career path elsewhere grows bleaker.

Saleah Blancaflor

5/15/26

From Desi Arnaz to SpaceX: Understanding the rules of the modern economy

We talked with “Planet Money” author Alex Mayyasi about how AI might help or replace you, the superstar effect, and how the compounding effect extends beyond money.

Globes covered with various currencies suspended in space

Millie Giles5/8/26

Ahead of Mother’s Day, Google searches for “same day flower delivery” have ticked up a little earlier this year

If you’ve already made plans for a Mother’s Day gift in advance of this Sunday, congratulations. But if alarm bells are suddenly ringing, consider this a gentle reminder that, like a sizable share of the US population this time of year often does, you can still scrape together some last-minute flowers for the woman who carried you for nine months.

Data from Google Trends reveals that searches for “same day flower delivery” spike in the US in May every year, when Mother’s Day takes place. As we noted last February, the same query also gains traction around Valentine’s Day.

This year, however, it appears that searches for last-minute flowers have remained elevated in the last two months after the usual peak in February — with the search interest this April actually exceeding that seen around Cupid’s Day.

Honestly, we’re not sure why searches are spiking a little early. One explanation might be that Passover and Easter have overlapped at the start of April, and Americans wanted to celebrate with some flowers. Maybe it’s a host of Claude bots that are now running errands for AI-obsessed execs — or perhaps Americans are just impulse-buying some seasonal spring blooms after an unusually warm March, without a particular occasion.