ILLINOIS – The Land of Lincoln has lost a fair share of residents in recent years, with a growing exodus of movers leaving Illinois for opportunities elsewhere.
According to new new state-by-state migration data from the U.S. Census Bureau, released last week, nearly 300,000 residents left Illinois in 2023.
Where exactly are former Illinoisans moving? These were the top five destinations for outbound-Illinois movers in 2023:
Indiana (29,426)
Florida (27,109)
Wisconsin (26,943)
Texas (24,181)
California (21,982)
Two of the top three destinations are neighboring states near Chicago, the third-most populous city in the United States. The volume to Indiana and Wisconsin suggest that some are simply crossing state lines with hopes to stay close to Chicago.
Meanwhile, the moves to California, Florida and Texas are quite a bit further, but possibly represent movers’ ambitions for warmer climates year-round.
Oddly enough, there was one state that had no reported outbound moves from Illinois last year: Vermont. The next lowest total was Wyoming with only 61 people moving there from Illinois last year.
These findings were partially inspired by another FOX 2 report this week that focused on Missouri’s migration trends. Missouri and Illinois are the two states of the St. Louis metropolitan area. Our previous report found, while tens of thousands are leaving Missouri, its population has remained steady and slightly increased overall, thanks to inbound movers outpacing outbound movers.
However, that’s not the case for Illinois.
Illinois’ overall population has declined by more than 260,000 residents since the start of the decade, per Census figures. Some inbound moves are inevitably helping with slowing the overall drop compared to annual losses, though it appears outbound moves have consistently outpaced inbound moves over the last few years.
For instance, state migration trends showed more people left Illinois for Missouri (15,326) last year as opposed to leaving Missouri for Illinois (14,982).
That’s a relatively small difference when comparing Illinois to two other popular outbound destinations. Last year, Illinois saw 11,555 inbound movers from Indiana and 14,135 from Wisconsin. In contrast, Indiana and Wisconsin welcomed at least 10,000 more former Illinois residents than Illinois received from both states in 2023.
