In defense of California: a statistical attack on regional xenophobia

The typical Idahoan is almost five times more likely to move to California than the typical Californian is to move to Idaho. That likely comes as a shock to most people who love to blame Californians for all of Idaho’s ills, as evidenced by the recent L.A. Times article, “Go back to California’: Wave of newcomers fuels backlash in Boise.”

The real social damage that occurs is when raw migration numbers get factually reported by reputable outfits like the Idaho Statesman, then get distorted and re-reported by less reputable outlets to imply that California is an uninhabitable hellscape, and Idaho is an unblemished nirvana that needs to be protected from California’s un-washed masses. This “us versus them” mentality is fundamentally harmful to the social fabric and economy of the country as a whole.

I think it is important for the people of Idaho, where I lived the first 22 years of my life, to get a dose of context. Idaho is still small-potatoes when it comes the entire population of the United States.

The U.S. Census’ 2018 state-to-state migration figures, on their face, show that 21,018 Californians moved to Idaho while just 4,224 Idahoans moved to California. The missing context here is that California’s existing population of 39 million is roughly 22 times larger than Idaho’s 1.75 million. California simply has more people eligible to move out of the state.

Using those figures, we can scale the populations for a more accurate and refined comparison.

In 2018, 0.05% of California’s population moved to Idaho. Meanwhile, 0.24% of Idaho’s population moved to California. Put another way, if you were to randomly ask 100,000 Californians if they were going to move to Idaho within a year, you would get 53 people to raise their hands. Meanwhile, if you asked 100,000 Idahoans the opposite question, you would have 241 people choosing to leave the Gem State for the Golden State.

This dynamic of being a net exporter of population to California on a per-capita basis despite being a net importer of raw population from California isn’t unique to Idaho. Oregon and Washington are also both net-importers of Californians overall and actually to a much greater degree than Idaho is. Unfortunately, I read much of the same “we were here first” sentiments coming from Portland, Seattle and Spokane. This even has been taken to the extreme of nonsensical populist proposals to somehow “tax the immigrants from California.”

The free movement of residents between states is a fundamental pillar supporting American entrepreneurism and continued social cohesion. Therefore, I applaud the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board for quickly responding to the L.A. Times’ Nov. 10 article with its Nov. 11 piece, “When it comes to Boise’s growth, quit blaming Californians.”

Because it seems to me that the real question that Idaho’s leaders should be wrestling with is why California is five times more attractive to Idahoans than Idaho is to Californians.