In-migration
The share of a place's residents who moved in from another county in the past year, and how that share has moved over three, five and ten years.
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The share of residents who were living in a different county a year ago.
The Census Bureau asks every resident aged one and over where they lived one year before the survey, and classifies each person as being in the same house, having moved within the same county, having moved from a different county in the same state, having moved from a different state, or having moved from abroad (ACS Subject Definitions).
This measure adds the two categories that represent a move from another county — from a different county within the same state, and from a different state — and divides by all residents for whom the question was answered. Moves within the same county are excluded, because a move across town is a change of address rather than an arrival. Moves from abroad are excluded as well: they are a genuinely different flow, counted differently, and concentrated in a small number of places.
Metrics in this family#
Considerations#
This is a gross inflow, not net migration. It counts the people who arrived and says nothing about how many left, so a place with high churn in both directions and a place growing quickly can read the same. Population and its trend carry the net result; this measure carries the arrival side of it.
It is also a one-year lookback asked over a five-year window, so the number is the average annual arrival rate across five overlapping survey years rather than a reading of any single year. Sudden inflows appear gradually and persist after they stop.
Arrivals are concentrated in rental housing and in places with a lot of turnover, so this share correlates with renter share more than it correlates with whether a place is desirable. It is best read as a measure of how much of the population is new, not of how much the population is growing.
A tract with a dormitory or other large group quarters can report a high share simply because its residents turn over by design.
In tracts with few residents the estimate carries a wide margin of error. Census tract boundaries were redrawn for the 2020 census and earlier estimates are carried onto current boundaries before use — see geography.
References#
- 1ACS Subject Definitionshttps://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/subject_definitions/2024_ACSSubjectDefinitions.pdf