Texas Lobbyist News: California residents leaving state in droves. Many are heading to Texas.
The following is a digest of an article originally appearing at the NBC Los Angeles website. The Texas Lobby Group is posting this summary as a public service for all Texas citizens, other Texas lobbyists and lobbying groups, Texas political consultants, and other interested parties.
100,000 more people left California than arrived there in 2011, according to reports from the US Census Bureau. There are definitely economic factors involved. While the country has struggled through a recession, the cost of living in the Golden State has continued to rise. Unemployment in California is also high.
With massive budget problems well known to the rest of the nation, why people are leaving isn’t hard to figure out. But where are they going? The number one destination is Texas. Almost 59,000 Californians have headed for the Lone Star State, whose “business friendly” atmosphere is attracting companies and jobs. Arizona is in second place with almost 50,000 California immigrations.
California officials dismiss these figures as a brief aberration, point to signs of economic recovery in California, and feel the trend may reverse itself soon.
We expect over the next couple of years that we will add jobs,” said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. “This year, we’ve added jobs in California at a faster pace than in the nation as a whole. So, we are moving in right direction. As that happens, we’ll see the migration numbers turn around some.
The agricultural industry in California has been negatively affected by recent crack downs in immigration enforcement in the U.S. While this policy makes sense and is inevitable, a shortage of workers has not helped a struggling California agricultural economy.
There are reports that show the exodus may be slowing, but the population deficit remains. Even pro-California activists admit that the state isn’t exactly business friendly. And with some of the highest real estate prices in the nation, the housing crisis has not helped matters.
The long-term exodus have affected the demographic of California. Once the destination of people migrating from the Midwest, the population of California is fast becoming more familial. A higher percentage of Californians are “home grown” now than any time since the early 1900s.
Most alarming is the lack of indication of a turnaround in this trend anytime soon. There simply isn’t anything on the horizon that would give hope that California will bounce back from its decline easily.
Read the original story here.