The Flow of New Yorkers Fleeing to Florida Accelerates

A record number of New Yorkers have moved to Florida. A total of 5,838 people from New York made the switch of their driver's license to the Sunshine State. This is the highest number of people flow recorded in a single month between those two states, according to The New York Post, the newspaper obtained data from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

To date, 41,885 New Yorkers have changed their licenses after moving to Florida, a state that maintained more flexible policies during the global confinement, since the start of the restrictions brought on by the covid pandemic.

These figures are based only on the change in licenses, so the number of New Yorkers moving to Florida could be higher.

A security problem

Fashion designer Alvin Valley is among those who left New York and moved their primary residence to Florida, specifically Palm Beach during the pandemic, and said the exodus was largely driven by quality of life concerns.

"Many families began to feel that New York was becoming unlivable(...)Especially for younger couples with children. They don't want to get on the subway. It's a security problem, it's a school problem," Valley explained.

Other exoduses

The demographic attrition of the most progressive states is accelerating. This is the case of California: the exodus was 56.2% of its migratory movements, and after covid it is 59.4%. Californians have migrated primarily to Texas. Texas and North Carolina, on the other hand, are growing in domestic immigration.

On the other hand, Republican states recover faster from the covid crisis after the pandemic incidence. According to a study conducted by The Wall Street Journal, both businesses and workers have migrated from Democratic states to Republican states.