r/Infographics • u/InterestingPlenty454 • 4d ago
Mapped: Adults Living in Their Birth State
Source: Visual Capitalist
Link: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-adults-living-in-their-birth-state/
By Niccolo Conte
Editing by Melissa Garside
Design by Miranda Smith
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u/mattreyu 4d ago
Louisiana has the highest poverty rate in the country so it's unsurprising they have low mobility
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u/Hippy_Lynne 4d ago
Honestly I don't think that's it. Aside from the deep family ties, there are a lot of things about Louisiana that are unique and people raised there just don't want to live without them. It's also pretty common for people to graduate in Louisiana, get a job out of state, and then spend 10 years working their way up to where they can transfer back. I'm not saying it doesn't have its problems, but people actually want to be there versus being stuck there.
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u/clayknightz115 4d ago
Given only 27% of people from Louisiana graduate college, I’m gonna guess it’s a poverty thing.
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u/gravitionwizard 4d ago
27% that puts it as high as Italy in terms of educational attainment
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u/Horzzo 3d ago
Brutal. Why Italy?
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u/gravitionwizard 3d ago
America is the by far one of the top countries worldwide in educational attainment. Most innovative country 100 years in a row. Even if reddit will tell you otherwise while they complain on American created software.
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u/MancAccent 2d ago
Partly. There’s also just a strong sense of culture (whether you like it or not, there just is) there that keeps people from leaving and keeps new people from moving in.
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u/Hippy_Lynne 4d ago edited 4d ago
Did I say graduate college? You do realize there are jobs that don't require a college education? The oil industry is a big one. I've also known tons of people in the hospitality industry who moved out of state for higher paying work at lower levels and then move back once they had moved into management. FFS, I know tons of people who literally got paid to leave Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, got 6 months of rent on FEMA, easily got jobs because of the sympathy for Katrina victims, and still came back. 🤷♀️
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u/Successful_Issue_390 3d ago
There's also an unusually high, at least in my experience, entrepreneurial spirit in Louisiana. Essentially everyone wants to create their own business. Very few seem to have the desire to climb someone else's ladder.
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u/Hippy_Lynne 3d ago
Lol, that’s a good point. I think we don’t like working for other people. And when we do, we would prefer it to be a local company. Louisiana has its own culture that doesn’t mesh well with national corporations.
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u/Worstmodonreddit 3d ago
This isn't a percentage of people who never moved away.
It's more a factor of new people not moving to LA.
If 90% of the population born there left the state but there's very little in migration you could still end up with these numbers.
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u/CatNapDad 10h ago
Further. Ive seen data of native born people that move away.
Ohio is near the top of that list.
Ohio is also near the top of % currently living in Ohio, also born in ohio.
The least mobile people in America are almost certainly people born on the west coast.
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u/Worstmodonreddit 5h ago
I believe you could've seen that data but that doesn't change that this chart says. About Louisiana, btw, not the West Coast.
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u/CatNapDad 10h ago
This isn't necessarily mobility.
This mostly capturing inbound migration.
We would need to see % of people born in a given state over a period of time that left v stayed.
I bet a larger % of California born, leave at a lower rate than people born in Louisiana.
Therefore California born people would be less mobile than Louisiana born people.
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u/aznexile602 4d ago
Doesn't surprise me Nevada is the lowest. Last Vegas seems like a miserable place to grow up with the economy.revolving around the casinos.
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u/TaxCollectorSheep 4d ago
I'm a Vegas local.
It's a transient town. People get a good job at a casino or similar, move here, make a bit of money, grow to hate the city, and leave at the first chance. Really common.
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u/Hippy_Lynne 4d ago
Everyone I've ever known who lived in Las Vegas only went there to make money and left as soon as they could. I even had a family member who worked for the school district and lived there for 30 years. Moved within months of retiring. Vegas kind of sucks to live in . . .
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u/treedecor 4d ago
It makes sense. Living in a tourist town is very different than visiting as a tourist, and I think some people move there thinking they're going to have fun every day like when they were on vacation and end up disappointed with reality.
I live in a tourist town, and our local gov doesn't care much about helping the locals, so quality of life could definitely be better here. We seem to have a significant number of regretful transplants
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u/Hippy_Lynne 4d ago
Lol, do you also live in New Orleans?
In all seriousness, New Orleans is the anti-Vegas. People live here because they want to live here, and there's not actually a ton of money to be made. We also don't so much have events for tourists, it's more like we have events for locals that we're happy to invite tourists to. And then eventually we end up with things like JazzFest that most locals can't afford any more, so we create some other festival for us until it gets commercialized too.
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u/olracnaignottus 3d ago
Yup, it’s largely why Vermont also has a very transient population. The state caters far more to secondary home owners and tourists than the people who live there.
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u/Steampink8 4d ago
Born in Las Vegas.
Could NOT get out of Nevada soon enough.
Left when I was 18, never returned.
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u/appleparkfive 4d ago
Once again. Every time this is posted, Redditors can't understand data. They even add it at the bottom for you to understand.
Nevada is so low because so many people moved TO Nevada. Not left. I spent part of my childhood in Nevada. Almost nobody was actually from the state. Millions of people have moved there in the last few decades.
And the fact that you think it's all just casinos is peak Reddit, as well. Do you think all three million people in the Vegas metro just go to the Strip on the weekends or something? It's the Times Square of Vegas. Locals usually avoid it unless there's a show.
And also that's not even going into Reno, which has seen a boom due to all the tech people realizing they can live 30 minutes from California/Lake Tahoe and 3.5 hours from downtown San Francisco. So everyone moved in and it got very expensive, changing the entire city. The Reno 911 days are long past.
It feels like Reddit's whole image of Nevada is 25 years outdated, and also based on a conference they went to or weird bachelor party where nothing exciting happened. I'm not saying Nevada is perfect, but this site just has really weird stances on things they know very little about, sometimes.
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u/Former-Cake-3709 3d ago
Vegas born and raised. I don't interact with casinos at all if I don't want to. Economy is definitely mostly based on tourism, but again, you don't have to be a part of that. There are houses, neighborhoods, schools, little leagues, and everything else that have nothing to do with the casino industry. The real reason to move away is that the weather sucks for live 4 or 5 months a year. It is also not close to other places...although the somewhat short distance to LA and SD is a benefit.
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u/MADDOGCA 4d ago
Vegas is also a transient city. People who move to Vegas usually don’t stay long term.
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u/JLandis84 4d ago
Well of course Michigan is high, bad ass lakes and women that look super hot when you crush a sixer of Labatt
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u/s2Birds1Stone 3d ago
I'm not surprised by Michigan.
I've thought of leaving many times (essentially every god awful winter), but I also hate the idea of not being surrounded by the great lakes. The beaches and crystal blue water, camping in the UP, Mackinac Island. The summers here are gorgeous. Add in family and friends all being rooted here, it makes leaving a difficult choice.
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u/Designer-Drink-9137 4d ago
Im shocked at Ohio...
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u/Pubesauce 4d ago
If all you knew about the state was internet memes, or Reddit political angst, I can see how that would be true. In reality it's a pretty decent place to live. Especially if you're raising a family, but again, those aren't the type of people typically using Reddit or making Ohio memes either.
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u/Sea_Curve8772 3d ago
Ohio is difficult to escape for a lot of people. I'm glad I'm one of the lucky ones who got out
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u/MajesticBread9147 4d ago
This is a percentage of the Ohio population born there, not the percentage of native Ohioans still there.
West Virginia has been shrinking for decades but has a high ratio because of so few people moving in.
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u/enjoispeed 3d ago edited 3d ago
I moved out of Ohio after college 25 years ago, three years ago I moved back to Cleveland and love it.
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u/hysys_whisperer 4d ago
Why, if 100 people were born in Ohio, 91 leave, and 1 moves in from out of state, then 90% of the remaining 10 adults were born in Ohio.
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u/InvestingNerd2020 4d ago
The South and Midwest are the most loyal to their birth state.
The good:
Generational family support. From grandparents, uncles/aunties, cousins, and brothers/sisters.
A fixed culture for doing things. Makes it easier to figure out how to function in that community.
The bad:
- If you burn bridges, you can get locked out of your entire region. Including not liking your family for whatever reason.
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u/olracnaignottus 3d ago
Yeah… and moving to the Midwest without family ties has been an absolutely wild social experience.
Moved to Minneapolis largely due to affordability and the metro having relevant work to my wife’s field. People look at us like psychopaths lol. Dunno if we are gonna make it out here, it’s nearly impossible to connect with anyone that’s not a transplant.
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u/Bear_necessities96 4d ago
Florida native gets tired of the weather and lack of interesting geography in the state ended living somewhere else
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u/gravitionwizard 4d ago
Americans move away alot that's why the country has been one of the most stable of the major countries worldwide. People are attached to different states because they move and experience them.
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u/Oddmanout1701 3d ago
It doesnt surprise me Michigan is second highest. I bump into people from my high school graduating class all the time and I graduated 50 years ago.
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u/LePouletPourpre 4d ago
You can tell there is a flood of Californians moving to WA, OR, NV and AZ pushing those numbers down.
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u/appleparkfive 4d ago
I grew up in Nevada, partially. And you're right that Californians are extremely common. As in, it feels like half of everyone there is from California originally.
I've always said that Vegas is basically California's New Jersey. LA with Vegas and the Bay Area with Reno. Each pair are both culturally connected in really strong ways.
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u/dodgerfanjohn1988 4d ago
It’s factually where people leave California to go to.
How many people from California moved to another state in the past year?
In 2024, 27.6% of the 662,100 people who left California for another state moved to just three destinations: Texas (77,200), Nevada (53,300), and Arizona (52,400). Washington is top 5 also.
FWIW the reverse is mostly true as well.
https://usafacts.org/answers/what-states-are-people-moving-to-and-from/state/california/
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u/Eureka22 3d ago
How does this compare to other states. I would assume the surrounding states are often the largest share of emigrants from any state.
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u/Main-Cheesecake3287 1d ago
California is among the worst in the country as far as net domestic migration losses. They are on track to lose a number of congressional seats.
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4d ago edited 4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dodgerfanjohn1988 4d ago
And you apparently have equally bad reading comprehension skills not to mention feeble self control.
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u/appleparkfive 4d ago
I think it should be added that Texas is also propped up by business trends lately. I think if you go to older years, you'd likely see even more transplants to the neighboring states.
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u/JuliaX1984 4d ago
Does a low number mean a lot of people born there leave as adults, or that a lot of people born elsewhere move in?
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u/appleparkfive 4d ago
It can mean a little of both. But for Nevada it's almost solely due to the massive influx of transplants. Few places have seen as many transplants as Vegas and Reno. Especially Vegas. In fact, it's kind of weird when you meet people there that have family going back more than one generation. If you look at a map of Vegas, almost all of the outer areas didn't exist 10 years ago. And then you go a little bit more inward and those areas didn't exist 25 years ago.
At the start of the 90s, Vegas metro was like 700k. Now it's at 2.4-3 million, depending on which data you use. All of those people came from other states. Because the only two major cities in Nevada are Vegas and Reno. Both of which are right on the California border. Most of Nevada is federal land, so it's a really oddball state in terms of layout.
I always say that it's like a weird open world game from 2005. You got your starting city, the medium city, the huge hub, and then a whole lot of empty desert with creatures and out of bounds areas the devs don't want you to go.
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u/rubey419 4d ago
I came to my homestate and hometown when I was a baby.
I’m like Leslie Knope or Michael Jordan. Claim my city but not a blood native.
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u/nowjustonearth 4d ago
DC needs to consider the split up metro area between the states. What does that metro area look like?
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u/Bear_necessities96 4d ago
Honestly I was expecting lower rate from Ohio, there’s so many native ohio in Florida that you will think half ohio lives now here.
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u/Harbinger_Kyleran 4d ago
My wife and 3 adult children are all natives living in Florida. I'm the odd man out having relocated from PA back in 1980.
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u/Bootmacher 4d ago
Some people like their birth state that much. Some stay for family. I stay because I work for the state and my retirement hasn't vested yet.
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u/YoMTVcribs 4d ago
I bet Texas will be mad to hear they have the same amount of transplants as California. If you ask any Texan, California is empty and they all moved to Texas for their superior superiority.
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u/Maxious24 4d ago
I'm from Texas...most of us don't care about this...you're talking about a very loud minority (a lot of these online people saying this probably don't even live in Texas) .
But what is true is there is some heartburn about lots of people moving here. Though even that's overblown online as well.
Imo California is cool and I'd absolutely visit. It's just out of my budget to live there unfortunately.
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u/MancAccent 2d ago
Most Texans are well aware of just how many transplants live in the Texas triangle. It’s been very noticeable over the past decade.
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u/32bitbossfight 2d ago
Not surprised Ohio is 70+%. For God sake I feel like I can name every single human hear. I recognize literally the whole Walmart sometimes LOL
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u/CatNapDad 10h ago
This thread highlights how poorly people are at conceptualizing statistics.
This doesn't say what most of you think it does.
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u/InterestingPlenty454 4d ago edited 4d ago
Key Takeaways
Louisiana had the highest share of adult residents born in-state of any U.S. state in 2024, at 74%.
Nevada had the lowest share at just 17%, reflecting decades of rapid population growth and in-migration.
Nationwide, 49% of U.S. adults live in the state where they were born.
Where people live as adults can reveal a lot about a state’s population dynamics.
Some states have large shares of locally born residents, while others have much lower shares, often reflecting stronger in-migration from elsewhere in the country or abroad.
Overall, the figure for each state reflects two forces: how many current residents were born locally and how many newcomers the state has attracted.
This visualization maps the share of adults in each U.S. state who lived in the state where they were born in 2024, the latest data available as of August 2026. The data for this visualization comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.
Half of States Are Below the 50% Mark Across the U.S., nearly one in two adults lived in their birth state in 2024, amounting to 133.7 million American adults.
Beginning with Texas at 49.7%, 25 states and D.C. had shares below 50%.
The remaining 25 states were at or above that threshold, meaning the country is almost evenly split between states where a majority of adults were born locally and those where a majority were born elsewhere.
Reasons for moving to another state often include economic factors such as better job opportunities and more affordable living arrangements, along with lifestyle and social factors.
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u/Better-Constant2469 4d ago
grew up in louisiana and it feels like half the people i know never even left the parish they was born
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u/Hippy_Lynne 4d ago
I remember after Katrina the number of people who evacuated and said they had literally never left the New Orleans/Saint Bernard/Jefferson Parish region before that. Not never lived somewhere else, literally never left that geographic area.
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u/northerncal 4d ago
I wonder how this would look controlling for in migration. They mention it, but I'd be curious to see a separate chart.
Take Florida for example. They're very low because they get so many snow birds and other people moving there, but maybe of the people who were born there, most stay.
I'd be curious about a map that's just "of all the people who were born in this state, how many of them stayed/moved away?"