Housing costs and affordability lead to slowing California population growth
A new report from the Public Policy Institute of California says the state is losing more residents than it is gaining from other states. What’s the most important reason? Employment and housing.
Since 2001, California has lost more residents than other states have gained, PPIC said.
“During the height of the pandemic, money flowing out of the state was so large that nearly every demographic and socioeconomic group suffered a net loss,” the report said.
The nonpartisan research organization said the trend requires “solutions if the state is to be a place where all residents have opportunity.”
So who is leaving California?
Low-income families find it difficult to afford housing
Most striking in the report is the departure of low-income adults, with a net loss of 532,000 over the past decade, accounting for more than 10% of California’s low-income adult population.
Migration away from the Golden State occurs due to a range of factors, including employment, housing or family. But since 2015, housing costs have been one of the biggest reasons people leave.
According to the statewide survey, about 34% of Californians are seriously considering leaving the state due to high housing costs, and 21% are considering leaving the state due to a lack of good-paying jobs.
Those who have left the state have found greener pastures. About half of those who left said they had purchased a home. Only a third of people who move to California are able to do so.
Remote work lures residents away
According to the PPIC report, a large number of college graduates and high-income families have left the state since the pandemic began.
The data shows that the loss of college graduates and higher-income families may be related to the ability to work from home.
In California, about two-thirds of the nearly 3 million full-time telecommuting residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Preferences Survey.
“More than half of high-income Californians who left the state during the pandemic reported working from home. While this share has declined in recent years, the share remains much higher than before the pandemic,” the report said.
Carter Lavesque, a student elections clerk at Folsom Lake College, holds an “I Voted” sticker for Folsom residents on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
(Hector Amezcua/hamezcua@sacbee.com)
Political push to leave
While California’s political landscape is more complex than the liberal haven the state is often portrayed as, partisan divides are also a factor in choosing to leave the Golden State.
A July 2025 PPIC report said voters who left the state between the 2020 and 2024 elections were disproportionately Republican compared to California’s overall population.
“Because more registered people moved out than moved in during this period, the net flow was even more Republican than these numbers suggest,” the report said. “Between these two elections, nearly five times as many Republicans moved out of California as moved into California in the data.”
Republican voters leaving California will head to more conservative states.
“This partisan sorting is strong enough to make Republican destination states more Republican than they are now, and Democratic states more Democratic than they are now,” the report said.
The opposite is also true: New residents coming to California are more Democratic.
“As Republicans leave the state for other states and Democrats join in, the process makes California more Democratic than other states,” PPIC said.
Are Californians only leaving the big cities? Small town?
Hans Johnson is PPIC’s demographer. He said the institute hopes to produce a report on more detailed data on these demographic trends.
But Johnson said the state’s largest immigrants come from metropolitan areas. But the capital has not entirely followed this trend.
“In general, Sacramento tends to attract people from other parts of the state, certainly the Bay Area. But, like the larger trend, it tends to cause a loss of people to other states,” Johnson said.
This is also reflected in the California Department of the Treasury’s data, on which PPIC’s report is based.
From 2020 to 2025, Sacramento County grew by nearly 1.5%. The total population of Los Angeles County and San Francisco County decreased during the same period, by 1.5% and 2.9% respectively.
Other Central Valley counties also experienced increases in total population. Stanislaus County was essentially stagnant, but still grew 0.5%. Fresno County grew 2.8% and Modesto County nearly doubled, growing 4.2% in five years.
San Luis Obispo County follows Johnson’s trend of marking coastal counties. Its population decreased by 1.2% from 2020 to 2025.
