Bill Wheelhouse of WUIS rejects the idea of a flight from Illinois:
Last year, Illinois was one of a handful of states that lost population. The out migration became a campaign issue in the governor’s race last year and has some throwing up caution flags. But the numbers don’t mean there is a crisis, or even a real clamor, to leave the state.
It is true Illinois lost population overall last year. More than 90,000 people moved elsewhere. In his State of the State Address, Gov. Bruce Rauner mentioned that over the past dozen years 250,000 people picked up and moved out of Illinois. That is correct. However, people also moved into the state and were born here. With the exception of last year, population has generally grown in Illinois at a small rate.
Illinois has experienced net out-migration every year for more than 20 years:
Unless every single one of those people is elderly or a child, that strongly suggests that Illinois’s dependency ratio, the ratio of those 14 years of age or under plus those 65 years of age or older to those between 14 and 65, has been increasing for the least two decades. Not only is that not good news, it’s a disaster from the point-of-view of the state’s tax base.
I don’t think that data on net loss of residents to other states captures foreign immigration. A lot of the bigger states are maintaining their population (blue states) or increasing their population (red states) due to immigrants. Though if it is the same data set I was looking at recently, Puerto Rico is not considered a foreign state, and IIRC, significant migration to Florida, New York and Texas.
In addition, just because people are not currently leaving in “droves” doesn’t mean it’s not an issue. That’s the typical straw man argument of catastrophe vs real problem.