Has America become a nation of homebodies? Yale law professor David Schleicher claims it has in a study published last week. In Stuck! The Law and Economics of Residential Stagnation, Schleicher outlines some of the legal and economic barriers to geographic mobility, like land use laws, homeownership subsidies, and occupational licensing. He goes on to argue that government policies depress geographic mobility rates.
Indeed, in 2016 the U.S. had the lowest relocation rate in seventy years. This is a problem, because low geographic mobility means some Americans are being left in the dust.
But in order to examine relocation trends, it is useful to understand why Americans relocate to begin with. U.S. Census data describes those reasons. Not surprisingly, the majority of Americans relocate for housing, job, and family.
Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, Geographical Mobility: 2015–2016
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