State remains balanced of incoming, outgoing residents

Are we losing, or gaining, state residents? Checking the number of household moves in one indicator.

Washington state had nearly as many incoming moves (2,752) as outgoing (2,604), earning it a place in the “balanced” category in the annual Atlas Van Lines survey.

The survey reviews data on the origins and destinations of interstate moves during the last 12 months. The 2011 Migration Patterns study results provide a snapshot of relocation patterns, showing an overall increase in the number of moves over last year.

The study revealed that the majority of the Western states remain balanced with only two states changing status. Utah is now an outbound state and Wyoming is now balanced.

Southwestern and Mid-Atlantic coastal states were popular destinations in 2011. The Midwest continues to lose residents, but Michigan became a balanced state after six consecutive years of steady outbound moves. For the sixth year in a row, Washington, D.C. had the highest percentage of inbound moves, while Ohio came out the clear leader in the highest percentage of outbound moves.

Each state has a threshold value, which is the total number of shipments multiplied by 0.55 (for example, in a state with 100 moves, at least 55 of them would have to be outgoing to classify the state as outbound).