The percentage of Americans who moved residences reached its lowest point in more than six decades last year, the Census Bureau said.
Barely 1 in 9 people, or 11.6 percent, changed locations between 2010 and 2011, the lowest total since the government began tracking the figure in 1948, the bureau said. The percentage of Americans who moved has declined since 1985, when 20.2 percent relocated.
“Although many of us still move over the course of a year, we are now less likely to do so,” Alison Fields, chief of the bureau’s journey to work and migration statistics branch, wrote in a report.
When people did move, it was mostly for employment-related reasons, according to one of four mobility-related studies released by the bureau. The government reported that 43.9 percent of people who moved more than 500 miles between 2008 and 2009 did so for work reasons. Only 11.6 percent of people moved long distances for housing.
A separate study based on the American Community Survey showed the most common move between 2009 and 2010 involved 68,959 people relocating from California to Texas. In addition, 47,164 Californians moved to Arizona, 39,468 to Washington and 35,472 to Nevada.
The second most-common relocation involved 55,011 people moving from New York to Florida, the bureau said. Third were the 49,901 people moving from Florida to Georgia.
For Colorado, it was Kansas that drew away the most people. Kansas attracted 1,714 more people from Colorado than it sent the other way.
Other states popular with those leaving Colorado were Arkansas, Maryland, South Carolina and Idaho.
But Colorado remains a popular destination for people relocating. California sent a net 10,427 new residents to Colorado last year, continuing a long-term trend.
Texas, which has weathered the recession better than Colorado, sent a net 5,892 new residents. Arizona sent 4,600, and Georgia 3,221.
Colorado remains among the most mobile states in the country. Nationally, 2.2 percent of U.S. households had lived in another state the previous year, the census estimates. In Colorado, that figure was 3.7 percent.
In another study, the Census Bureau reported that a majority of Americans lived in their state of birth. Louisiana had the most home-grown residents at 78.8 percent of its population. Next were Michigan, with 76.6 percent; Ohio, with 75.1 percent; and Pennsylvania, with 74 percent.
Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and the District of Columbia had fewer than 40 percent of natives living there.
In Colorado, 42.5 percent of residents were born in the state.
Denver Post staff writer Aldo Svaldi contributed to this report.
