Michigan Leads the Nation in Outbound Moves

United Van Lines, LLC has released its annual migration study on where it takes its clients to and from among the 48 contiguous states. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has tested their data against actual census data going back to 1977 and found the two to be very highly correlated. This makes UVL data something of a leading migration indicator. According to UVL, a staggering 67.8 percent of its Michigan client traffic was outbound in 2007. That rate is an all-time record high, eclipsing the previous 1981 record of 66.9 percent during a year the Great Lake State suffered from an unemployment rate of 12.5 percent. Last month the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Michigan lost 30,500 citizens from July 2006 to July 2007. For more information on Michigan's migration, read "Michigan's Diaspora: The Revealed Preference for Leaving."