Exodus: Connecticut Ranked #1 in People Moving From State

Connecticut residents are on the move.  Out.

The state led the nation with the highest percentage of outbound moves in 2013, according to Atlas Van Lines’ annual report of moves throughout the U.S. and Canada. Of 2,055 residents' moves during the year, 1,230 of them, or 60 percent, were out of state – the highest percentage in the nation.  That's compared to 825 moves from other states into Connecticut.

A year ago, Connecticut was #7 in the nation in the ratio people moving out-of-state, with 1,123 outbound and 834 inbound moves, in a survey by United Van Lines.  This year, Connecticut led the nation in outflow of residents in the Atlas Van Lines survey.

During the past five years, inbound moves peaked in 2010 at 1,009 – with a just slightly higher  1,160 outbound moves.  Since then, the numbers have skewed increasingly out-of-state, Atlas reported.

The 2013 year was the state's highest outbound percentage and highest total number of outbound moves since 2009.  Connecticut has been an outbound state for six of the past ten years, including the past three consecutively, according to Atlas.  An “outbound” state is defined as one that has more than 55 percent of moves outbound.

The remainder of the New England states were "balanced" in 2013, with the exception of New Hampshire, which was considered an inbound state in 2013. The data indicates that progressively fewer people were moving into Connecticut in the last three years, a pattern not consistent throughout New England.  None of the other New England states were outbound states in 2013.  In the previous year, Maine joined Connecticut as an outbound state in the United Van Lines survey.

States that saw the greatest percentage of inbound movers: North Dakota, North Carolina, and Texas.  States with the highest outbound move percentage after Connecticut were New York and Indiana, both at 59 percent.  Only 12 states were net outbound states:  Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Wyoming, Delaware, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

The Greenwich Time reported that the branch manager of Danbury's Certified Van Service of Connecticut say, his truckers – part of the United Van Lines company - relocated about 100 families from the Hartford area to Charlotte, N.C., and from Fairfield County to Atlanta. For Kevin Kaster, president and owner of Kaster Moving in Stamford, the study confirms one trend he's recently experienced.  "Texas has been a hotspot the last two years, no question," he said. "An inordinate amount of people from around here are going to Texas."  Brielle Sollinger, assistant marketing manager at Fallon Moving and Storage in Windsor, agreed.   "Texas is big. We also do lots of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina," she said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.

Atlas reported that across the nation, most states were balanced evenly between inbound and outbound moves. The company also reported that the number of total moves increased during the year, something it said could be an indicator of an improving economy.  The data covered the period from January 1 through December 31, 2013.