County is part of statewide out-migration trend
Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 8:50am
By CRAIG FREILICH
St. Lawrence County has fewer residents than it did in 2000, and those that left had higher average incomes than those that came in, a recently released report says.
The Census Bureau estimates that 3,284 or 2.9 percent of the 111,931 people the census counted as living in St. Lawrence County in 2000 have left the county and New York State, according to “Empire State Exodus: The Mass Migration of New Yorkers to Other States,” a report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy.
Franklin County lost 836 or 1.6 percent, and Jefferson County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state in the 1990s with the expansion of Fort Drum, lost 6.8 percent of its residents since the 2000 census.
The report notes that most of the people moving out of the state, and out of the county, had higher incomes than those moving in.
Using IRS data on interstate tax-filer migrants, the report says that from 2006 to 2007, 699 tax filers who moved into St. Lawrence County from other states had an average reported income of $38,266, while 847 tax filers moving to other states had an average income of $39,481.
The Albany-based research institute says St. Lawrence County and nearly every other county in the state lost residents to states in the South and to neighboring states since the last census in 2000.
More than eight percent of New Yorkers have left the state since the 2000 census, according to
The report also notes that the people leaving have average incomes that are higher than those moving in.
The report tracks net domestic migration, or movement of people within the United States, based on data from the 2000 census and the latest data from the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service.
The report examines how many New Yorkers have been leaving the state, where they have been going, and how much income they have been taking with them.
It does not include data on immigration from outside the United States. While the state’s population has grown slightly over the period, it notes that 1.5 million New Yorkers have left, and the state’s share of U.S. population is shrinking.
California is the only other state that lost more a million residents (1.36 million) while Florida gained 1.25 million residents from other states.
New York’s total population increased by 2.7 percent between 2000 and 2008, despite the massive continuing migration of New Yorkers to other states. The primary reason, the report says, is the 876,969 foreign immigrants who came to live in New York State.
“Since foreign immigration is a much less significant factor upstate, fewer of those who leave that region for other states are ultimately replaced,” the report says.
The reports authors, the Empire Center for New York State Policy, was established in 2005 by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. The center’s web site is at www.empirecenter.org.
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