U.S. Markets open in 3 hrs 56 mins

'No longer God's waiting room': Florida has more jobs than New York for the first time ever — here's why the trend of Americans fleeing south isn't slowing anytime soon

2.9k
Amy Legate-Wolfe
·5 min read

Florida is no longer just for grandparents and retirees, according to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, it recently beat New York as the most jobs of any state — a first since the Bureau began to report these numbers in 1982.

Don't miss

The Sunshine State ended last year with 9,578,500 non-farming industry jobs, compared to 9,576,100 in the Empire State.

While the gap has been closing for a while, it takes some digging to understand why. It’s not as though an obvious guess — pre-retirees riding the pandemic to move south — is a top reason.

“Florida is no longer God’s waiting room,” said Craig Studnicky, chief executive officer of ISG World, a real estate firm that specializes in South Florida luxury residential developments.

“We’re attracting businesses and young people to come from all over the country because of our low taxes and warm weather.”

Florida vs. New York

Studnicky’s wording includes an important clue to who’s driving the growth in Florida: “Young people,” not their grandparents or parents. But if the age demographics are shifting, the pandemic still acted as a prime mover, with remote working the driver.

Pre-COVID, Florida had just over 9 million jobs in the state, compared to the 9.9 million in New York. Yet with unprecedented remote work options, the reasoning among many amounted to this: Why trudge to a cubicle in a biting blizzard when you can do the same job in flip-flops from a beach cabana?

And the southern migration doesn’t look likely to slow anytime soon. New York continues to struggle with its post-COVID recovery, surging crime rates in the Big Apple, and soaring inflation, interest rates and taxes. In fact, more than 64,500 former New Yorkers left for Florida last year alone, according to analysis of Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles data done by the New York Post.

Still, Florida has more going for it than just former New Yorkers. High taxes in California, Pennsylvania and other states have also led to a mass migration pattern. Furthermore, Florida also led the U.S. in the formation of new businesses: more than 1.7 million since January 2020 and more than a third of those in 2022 alone.

Since the pandemic, Florida has continued to hit record after demographic record, becoming the fastest-growing state since 1957, BLS numbers show. Its population ballooned to 22.2 million residents between 2021 and 2022: a year-over-year jump of 1.9%, making Florida the third-most populous state in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Empire State saw the largest population decrease in the last year, though not a huge one as numbers go. Of all 50 states, New York lost roughly 180,000 residents, its population falling by 0.9% to 19.6 million.

Read more: Rich young Americans have lost confidence in the stock market — and are betting on these 3 assets instead. Get in now for strong long-term tailwinds

Who does the state appeal to?

There have even been some headline-worthy moves of late as well. Hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin reported that he would locate the headquarters of his $50 billion company, l, to Miami. This came after Griffin cited soaring crime rates in Chicago (though local observers remain skeptical of his reasoning, given the relative safety of many Windy CIty neighborhoods).

As opposed to conventional snowbird migration, the Sunshine State is seeing tech and finance job opportunities spur its population uptick, along with state income taxes that amount to … bupkis. Compare that to Illinois, where income is taxed at 4.95%, or New York, where it’s 4 to 10.9%, with an additional income tax for Big Apple residents.

Meanwhile, Miami’s migration influx has been worth about $2 trillion in assets, according to Mayor Francis X. Suarez. And with so much growth in only about two years time, it looks as though opportunities in Florida are just warming up — while New York could take years to recover the pre-pandemic job growth it once enjoyed.

But no state of sunshine lasts forever. Florida’s newcomers also get to deal with a nasty brand of conservative politics that’s driving teachers and LGBTQ+ residents away — and may hurt the state’s image and economics in the long run.

Are those issues worth dealing with to relocate? In the long run, that remains to be seen. But for now, the influx of newbies seems to point to yes.

What to read next

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

Recommended Stories

  • EUR/USD Forecast – Euro Has Erratic Trading on Monday

    The Euro initially gapped to the upside, before falling rather significantly to pierce the 50-Day EMA. After that, buyers came back in and picked it back up.

  • USD/JPY Forecast – US Dollar Continues to Pull Back Against the Yen

    The US dollar has pulled back a bit against the Japanese yen as traders are all over the place. Ultimately, this is going to be about interest rates more than anything else.

  • Meta’s Layoffs Are Just a Drop in the Bucket. These Companies Cut More.

    Job postings on hiring website Indeed have been declining since early in 2022, but the slide has steepened over the past few months.

  • ‘Someone needs to tell Jerome Powell that this is not a kill-at-all-costs mission.’ Cut interest rates now to prevent a full-blown banking crisis.

    A rate cut won't end the war on inflation. It just pauses the battle -- if the Fed has the guts to do it, writes Chuck Jaffe.

  • 'The most chilling metric of all': Mike Rowe warns that 7 million American men are 'done' looking for work and have 'punched out' — why that's a serious problem

    It’s taking a toll on multiple industries.

  • The Companies Conducting Layoffs in 2023: Here’s the List

    U.S. businesses in sectors ranging from manufacturing to technology are recalibrating after a period of rapid growth.

  • IMF Wants ‘Swift’ Sri Lanka Debt Talks After $3 Billion Loan

    (Bloomberg) -- The International Monetary Fund approved a $3 billion loan program for Sri Lanka to bolster its economy and urged for swift progress in talks on debt structuring between the bankrupt nation and its creditors. Most Read from BloombergUBS to Buy Credit Suisse in $3.3 Billion Deal to End CrisisMorgan Stanley Strategist Says Bank Stress Signals Bear Market EndCredit Suisse’s Fate Was Sealed by Regulators Days Before UBS DealUS Studies Ways to Guarantee All Bank Deposits If Crisis Expa

  • When is the next Fed meeting? Here's what to know and when to expect (another) rate hike.

    The next Federal Reserve meeting will be held March 21 to 22. January's meeting raised the interest rate range by a quarter percentage point.

  • IMF to assess Sri Lankan governance as part of $3B bailout

    The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday it is assessing Sri Lanka’s governance in the first case of an Asian country facing scrutiny for corruption as part of a bailout program. The IMF executive board approved a nearly $3 billion bailout plan for the bankrupt nation Monday and about $333 million was to be disbursed immediately to help alleviate the country's humanitarian crisis. Sri Lanka suspended repayment of its debt last year as it ran short of foreign currency needed to pay for imports of fuel and other essentials.

  • IMF Approves $3 Billion Bailout for Sri Lanka

    Colombo has been in talks to receive financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund since last spring.

  • The canary is alive and chirping a year into Fed's rate hiking cycle

    Utah homebuilder Ivory Homes still has a pipeline of several hundred houses under construction, but CEO Clark Ivory isn't pulling permits for any more at this point, and in a year of retrenchment for the single-family home industry, he has laid off just under 10% of his workers. But don't look for that to be reflected in overall U.S. construction employment or spending data, a canary that is very much still breathing inside what would usually be the toxifying air of rising U.S. interest rates. While housing starts are falling, "there is still a fair amount of completion happening," Ivory said, adding that contractors can move on to other jobs once finished with his company's projects.

  • The Facts Have Changed. The Fed’s Plans Should, Too.

    The banking panic has achieved the same effect as an interest-rate increase. The Fed should pause, writes Desmond Lachman.

  • US House Speaker McCarthy says he told Biden lack of debt talks jeopardizes economy

    U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday that he confronted President Joe Biden about a lack of negotiations on the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt ceiling last week and told the president he is putting the economy at risk. McCarthy, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, first met with Biden on Feb. 1.

  • VW's Skoda would cut 3,000 jobs if 'Euro 7' implemented in current form

    Czech carmaker Skoda would have to cut 3,000 jobs and axe some models if the European Union's "Euro 7" emissions scheme is implemented in its current form, a Skoda board member warned in a TV debate on Sunday. Daimler Trucks chief Martin Daum for instance said on March 10 it would cost the industry "billions". "If (Euro 7) is approved in this shape, it would mean for Skoda Auto to close one plant, because we would stop producing the smaller models - Fabia, Scala, Kamiq - that means 3,000 jobs (would be) hit at least," Martin Jahn, a board member of Skoda, which is part of Volkswagen, said in a televised debate.

  • GLOBAL MARKETS-Bank stocks gain as markets digest Credit Suisse rescue

    Bank stocks rallied on Monday and a cross-asset scramble for safety abated, as investors heaved a tentative sigh of relief that a historic weekend rescue of financial heavyweight Credit Suisse is containing the banking crisis for now. Sunday saw the most dramatic state intervention since the 2008 global financial crisis, with UBS buying Credit Suisse for 3 billion francs ($3.2 billion) in a takeover backstopped by unlimited funding pledges from the world's top central banks.

  • GBP/JPY Forecast – British Pound Plunges Against the Yen

    The British pound initially tried to rally during the trading session, but then sold off quite drastically to pierce the ¥160 level.

  • Did SVB break the Fed? Officials mull risks of more rate increases

    At an early January meeting of the Virginia Bankers Association, executives were already nervous that Federal Reserve interest rate increases were making it hard to compete for deposits. "Everywhere I go in the industry people are feeling that kind of pressure," the featured speaker of the day, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, said in response to a question from the audience. The influence of Fed rate hikes "is going to hit...That is how it is designed."

  • ‘Five-Alarm Fire’: White House Slams GOP Budget Proposal

    The White House on Monday launched what it says will be a week-long offensive slamming Republicans over what it calls a “draconian” budget plan proposed by the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. House Republicans led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy have yet to roll out their official budget plan. Their blueprint has been delayed as the party reportedly struggles to find consensus on proposals to cut spending. But the White House is honing in on budget demands released this month by the House Freedom Cau

  • Colombia’s Bond Market Will Have a Major New Player, Finance Chief Says

    (Bloomberg) -- Colombia’s ambitious overhaul of its pension system will create a major new player in the local market and shore up demand for the nation’s bonds, according to Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo. Most Read from BloombergUBS to Buy Credit Suisse in $3.3 Billion Deal to End CrisisCredit Suisse’s $17 Billion of Risky Bonds Are Now WorthlessThe One Big Winner and Many Losers of UBS’s Credit Suisse RescueMorgan Stanley Strategist Says Bank Stress Signals Bear Market EndStocks Stage R

  • What is a bank bailout?

    A look at what a bank bailout is with some examples of notable bank bailouts from the past.