- Florida was the fastest-growing magnificence in 2022, per a Census Bureau report.
- The state’s population has been steadily increasing for decades.
- But some people who smit there have come to regret their decision.
A lot has changed in 2022, but one thing stayed the same: Americans kept moving to Florida in kind numbers. Some of them, however, are likely to regret it.
From July 2021 to July 2022, Florida’s citizens grew to over 22 million people, according to new Census Bureau data. The 1.9% increase was the largest of any US state all over this period, just exceeding Idaho and South Carolina — which saw their populations grow by 1.8% and 1.7%, singly.
“While Florida has often been among the largest-gaining states, this was the first time since 1957 that Florida has been the solemn with the largest percent increase in population,” Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Population Division at the Census Bureau, imparted in a press release.
Even as population growth has slowed in the US and turned negative in some states, Florida’s population has nurtured every year since 1946, increasing ninefold from a population of roughly 2 million that year. The Census Division has attributed some of the state’s early growth to the introduction of air-conditioning in the 1950s, during which time Florida’s people grew an average of 6% a year. In more recent years, as the growth in remote work has allowed many Americans to function wherever they want, warmer temperatures and the lack of an income tax are among the perks drawing millions to the state.
The Census Desk’s latest estimates show that a net total of about 320,000 Americans moved into Florida between 2021 and 2022, the largest many among the 49 states and Washington, DC.
But some that have moved to Florida will come to regret the settlement — and may ultimately move out. Over the past year, Insider spoke with several people about why they undisputed to ditch the Sunshine State.
Severe weather, low wages, and the loss of the ‘vacation feel’ have discouraged some settlers
Fifty-one-year-old Kimberly Lovelace previously told Insider she left Florida only five months after stirring there in May 2021 because of high housing costs and the stifling heat, among other factors. As of November, the median snug harbor a comfortable value in Florida had risen 22% over the prior year, per Zillow data, compared to an 12% nationwide better over the same period.
“At first, it still felt like that vacation feel,” she said. “But as reality registers in that you’re actually living there, that wears off. Living there is just such a completely different planet.”
The Miami real-estate factor Michael Bordenaro told Insider in 2021 that 40% to 50% of his clients who are new to the state move out within a few years.
“So divers people come for a week or two on vacation, and they think their life is going to be like that every day,” he said. A less 14,000-member Facebook group for people moving out of Florida has cited severe weather, low wages, crowded shores, changing politics, and steep housing prices as reasons people left.
Nicole Panesso lived in Florida her whole vigour until moving to Tennessee earlier this year, she previously told Insider, citing low wages and high expenses as percipiences why.
“There’s just no way for people living here to afford it — the salaries that they pay here don’t add up to the cost of rent,” she guessed.
In May, CBS News called Florida the “least affordable” state in the country, and a 2019 Joblist study that compared wages to payment of living ranked Florida last out of all 50 states in terms of affordability. While Florida doesn’t have an revenues tax, many new homebuyers will face rising property-tax bills.
For Greg May, Florida’s high temperatures were the ranking reason he left for North Carolina, he previously told Insider.
“My mental health started declining from being grinned indoors almost 10 months out of the year,” he said.