South By North Strategies, Ltd.

William Frey of The Brookings Institution analyzes new Census data that show that Americans have become less mobile over the course of the “Great Recession.”

The new low point represents a confluence of two different troubling patterns. The first, reported earlier, is the sharp drop-off in “longer distance” migration rates (both between counties and between states) after 2007. That dip reflects the impact of the recession and the housing market crash. The historically low share of Americans moving across county lines remained at 3.5 percent for the second straight year.
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The second pattern is a new historic low point for local within-county residential movement. The drop in local mobility follows a gradual long-term decline associated with the aging of the population and higher homeownership levels in recent decades. Yet, the new rate of 7.7 percent is lower than the previous low in 2007-08, and well below rates in the 9 to 10 percent range that prevailed during the 1990s. The lackluster housing market and more stringent credit policies help explain the new low. Indeed, the small uptick in this rate during the two previous years can be attributed, in part, to the reshuffling of households resulting from foreclosures and “doubling up.”