Moving In or Out
The U-Haul company has become almost synonymous with people packing up and moving out. Obviously there are other fine companies out there that will rent you a truck or a trailer, but U-Haul has assembled data nationwide to come up with their state growth index.
Iowa is pretty well situated, but slipped a bit from 2020…we’re the number 27 growth state according to U-Haul transactional data for last year…that’s down from number 24 the year before.
The calculation comes from the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a state versus leaving that state in the calendar year. People coming to Iowa in one-way U-Haul trucks rose 15 percent last year…but departures increased by even more, 18 percent.
Again, that’s a small enough distinction to be virtually insignificant statistically. What’s interesting is multi-year trends, and Iowa is again in the middle of the pack. Also consistent year-to-year would be the top three growth states…Texas is number 1, followed by Florida and Tennessee in the most recent survey. Those same three were the top three the year before, with Tennessee being the state with most growth in 2020. Texas has been number 1 or 2 in terms of positive growth for the past six years.
Interesting is the calculation of states with the largest net migration away…California had the largest net loss, followed by Illinois…and each has held that dubious distinction for the past two years. Draw whatever causal conclusions you want about that.
