California’s population declines, again, as state grapples with housing crisis

At all governmental levels, California is fully mis-managed partly because management no longer has to do with outcomes beneficial to residents of California. And the question is as more reasonable people who expect reasonable management of the state leave (I plan to be one), how will the state ever turn around when voters continue to vote for management that does not manage in their best interests?

Where are they moving to? Because CoL isn't everything. Quality of life is a real issue. Move to TX and you get an even worse run public utilities and anti-woke politicians run amok. Worse with FL.

The problem is not endemic to CA. It's literally everywhere because everyone who can afford it has decided to seek rent instead of profits.

> From my understanding, California leadership at all levels of government has had only one lever the past couple decades, and that lever can only be pushed one direction.

Your understanding is wrong, and there’s probably no place that this is more obvious than housing.

It'll be interesting to see if any of the reparations stuff ends up happening.

A lot of this is uncannily familiar to anyone who's read Atlas Shrugged.

That’s exactly how I feel about Oregon. It’s so frustrating to look at what was once a beautiful state being ruined by politicians that would prefer more homeless individuals over me.

I am on the fence - love CA jobs, people and weather, but hate prop13 and the incestuous ruling political class that claims to be progressive/left but are just corporatist and protect their own above anything else (not that it's much different in many other states - they're just more overt about it).

The challenge is that the time to leave CA was at the beginning of the pandemic or earlier, and now housing prices / rent everywhere else have gone up way more than CA.

Please stick with the dystopian hellhole memes and let the technolocusts find better fields.

People leaving is a sign that policies aren't working well for everyone.

For each person that leaves, typically that means many more whose quality of life has declined and are considering leaving.

If California works for you, then great, you have no obligation to be unhappy on behalf of others.

Some number of us who left would've preferred to continue living there, but it can be difficult to justify that if you're trying to not spend a majority of your income on housing.

In my case, as a remote worker it was hard to say no to a house twice the size of my old apartment for a mortgage payment half of what my rent was. The only tradeoff was more rainy days, since I moved to a metro in the PNW.

Had housing prices been more reasonable in the parts of California where people want to live, I wouldn't have had any issue staying. It was nice.

> It seems like much of this comes from the shift to remote work.

A lot of it, as in 2020, came from the reduction in immigration to the United States (2020 and 2021 were about 300k below any time in the prior decade, due to pandemic-related restrictions.

California has had negative net domestic (within the US) migration offset by international immigration, for which it is a major destination for both employment- and family-based immigration, for quite a long time prior to 2020.

Another big chunk is retirements (which in 2020 and 2021 were accelerated by the pandemic); taking savings from working in California and retiring out of state to a lower CoL area has been common for a long time.

That doesn't make any sense. You really think remote tech jobs are the leading cause of this population decline in a state of 39 million people?

They've tried this twice already, although neither bill went through:

https://scocablog.com/exit-taxes-in-california-not-so-fast/

Especially egregious was a 10-year look back so even if you left years before the taxes would take effect, they'd still fleece you.

The way California's finances are going, and the way the state is degenerating, it's only a matter of time until they get serious and pass some form of this. It probably won't pass legal muster, but they'll do it anyway and spend years fighting it in courts.

Not quite the same, but you may own CA taxes on stock options if you earned them while living in CA even if you don't live there when you cash them in.

https://www.upstartwealth.com/blog/will-you-owe-ca-tax-after...

That was proposed a few years ago, but i dont have a link.

Not enough to change the broad shape of the problem, because despite the word “plummet” the number of people leaving in net is not big enoughbto make much difference to the huge supply problem. The 2021 drop was less than half a percent of population.

Also, when you look at both sides of migration, the in-migrants are richer and less price sensitive than the out-migrants, so, they put disproportionate pressure on prices for the remaining non-rich, mitigating the demand effects of net out-migration.

Vacant homes held as investment/ properties built for the wrong market (for example: high-end, luxury, when demand warrants multi-family, middle income) can unfortunately keep general availability low and prices high.

It has at least in the Bay Area. Rent and Home prices in many places have been flat.

Most people leaving probably aren’t homeowners.

Clearly the fact that people are leaving in such large numbers suggests that it isn't serving the current population very well.

To some degree isn't this people voting with their feet? A U.S. state does a lot of things in serving people, people are going to look at all of that collectively to decide if those decisions are in general good or bad.

I don't think collective decisions like this are the last word and it's probably hard to use the de-population to make some sort of judgement on any particular policy or aspect of California but I also wouldn't say it's impossible to draw conclusions.

California has enormous pension obligations at every level of government to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per household (maybe 77k!?). It will not meet that liability with a declining population, particularly if corporations and the wealthy do the leaving. It can’t legally shift money around, it’s all been allocated by the voters. The only option is to increase taxes, and probably by a lot, which would push more people out of the state given it already has the highest taxation in the country. If I were Ca, I’d be building as much new housing as I could as quickly as possible. Hopefully, declining housing costs (against inflation if nothing else) would make it a wash for future residents.

When a state increases its expenses every year, it has two choices, grow the tax base or rase the tax rates.

California is already one of the most taxed states and greater increases in tax rates will likely shrink its tax base.

Surely one can at least argue that it matters if people are voting with their feet? But on the other hand, it's not like the state is being brought to its knees. This decline of 138k people is minuscule, roughly a third of a percent. Should the trend continue, California will still, with 25 million people, be elbows deep in residents a hundred years from now.

It doesn't have to grow. But it definitely shows that people don't want to stay there.

For individuals who aren't price sensitive, the juice isn't worth the squeeze because rent hikes outside the state have been higher. I might save a few hundred dollars a month. It doesn't meaningfully change the financial situation, and then one loses access to the weather, beaches, etc.

I like it here. I like other places too but I like it here more. And, I think it’s worth staying and advocating for change that would mean other people who like it here could stay too if they wanted.

I’ve been here for a few years. It’s been great as a software engineer that’s single and able to afford rent. But I’d never join the housing rat race. I could stick around at Google and make enough to afford some place. But I’d rather just live somewhere else.

What's wrong with people moving from California to Iowa?

It’s too crowded so no one goes there anymore. California just over grew the last 80 years and now it is leveling off. Not really mysterious, not an exodus of people that it will get it under 39 million anytime soon, let alone to a much more realistic 30 million.

If it were only true!

Houses around here are under $1M, often half that amount. Big houses.

It's a University town as well. Smaller places are even cheaper.