Who’s Really Leaving California
Who’s Really Leaving California — And Why San Joaquin County Is Gaining While the State Loses
LodiEye — April 2026
Summary
California has now posted six consecutive years as the nation’s largest net loser of residents to other states, but the pandemic-era exodus is easing, high-income households are returning in rising numbers, and San Joaquin County is quietly doing the opposite of the coastal metros — gaining domestic migrants and net adjusted gross income at a time when the state as a whole is shedding both. The newest IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) migration file, released in 2026 and covering tax year 2023, combined with the July 2025 Census and California Department of Finance estimates, tells a more nuanced story than the “California exodus” headlines suggest.
The Statewide Picture
California lost roughly 200,000 residents on net to other states in tax year 2023, down from a pandemic peak near 300,000 per year in 2020–2022 but still above the pre-pandemic baseline of about 170,000. The year ending July 2025 shows net domestic migration of −216,000, partially offset by +126,000 international arrivals, producing a total population change of +108,000 — the third consecutive year of small positive growth. Forgone personal income tax revenue from the net outflow peaked at 1.6% of state PIT collections in 2022–23 and is now narrowing as higher-income households return.
California Net Domestic Migration, 2019–2025
Source: IRS SOI (TY 2023), California Department of Finance E-2, U.S. Census Bureau
| Year (July–July) | Net Domestic | Net International | Total Pop. Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019–20 | −170,000 | +140,000 | roughly flat | IRS / PPIC |
| 2020–22 avg | −300,000 | < +50,000 | negative | IRS / DOF |
| 2022–23 | −250,000 | +90,000 | slightly negative | DOF |
| 2023–24 | −140,000 | +134,000 | +0.1% | DOF |
| 2024–25 | −216,000 | +126,000 | +0.27% | DOF / Census |
Where They Go, Where They Come From
The top destinations for departing Californians are Texas (about 77,000 a year), Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The top senders of new arrivals into California are Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, and New York — and the fact that Texas is simultaneously #1 out and #1 in is the single clearest signal that “boomerang” migration is a meaningful share of the state’s inbound flow.
The Boomerang Rate
The IRS SOI file is a one-year snapshot, but chaining successive annual files — the method used by PPIC, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, and Stanford SIEPR — yields a consistent finding: roughly 20–25% of Californians who leave return within about five years, and that share is rising in post-pandemic data. Return rates are highest for moves to neighboring Western states (Nevada, Arizona, Oregon), where distance, weather, and cost make reversal cheaper, and lowest for Texas and Florida, where distance and dramatically different climate anchor movers in place. High-income households are leading the rebound: 10% more high-AGI adults moved to California in 2023 than in 2021, while 22% fewer left.
Five-Year Boomerang Rate by Destination State
Source: Chained IRS SOI migration files, 2018–2023; LAO April 2026 summary
San Joaquin County Bucks the Trend
While the state loses people, San Joaquin County gains them. The IRS SOI 2022→2023 county file shows approximately 38,500 people moving into San Joaquin County and 32,000 moving out, for a net gain of about +6,500 residents and roughly +$500 million in net AGI. The county’s population reached about 808,000 as of July 2025. Every AGI band from under $25k to $200k+ was positive on net in 2023 — a pattern that distinguishes San Joaquin from coastal Bay Area counties, where the top AGI band is negative.
San Joaquin County Net Migration by AGI Band, TY 2023
Source: IRS SOI County Migration File, San Joaquin County (FIPS 06077), TY 2023
| AGI Band | Net Persons (TY 2023) | Net AGI ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| Under $25k | +1,200 | +$15 |
| $25k–$50k | +1,400 | +$55 |
| $50k–$75k | +1,100 | +$70 |
| $75k–$100k | +900 | +$80 |
| $100k–$200k | +1,500 | +$215 |
| $200k+ | +400 | +$180 |
Top Senders Into San Joaquin County
Roughly seven of every ten new arrivals into San Joaquin County come from another California county, and more than half of those come from the five core Bay Area counties. The 2022→2023 file’s ten largest inbound pipelines are dominated by Alameda, Sacramento, Contra Costa, Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with Maricopa (AZ), Clark (NV), and Harris (TX) rounding out the top ten.
| Rank | Origin | Approx. Persons In |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alameda County, CA | 4,800 |
| 2 | Sacramento County, CA | 3,900 |
| 3 | Contra Costa County, CA | 3,200 |
| 4 | Stanislaus County, CA | 2,400 |
| 5 | Santa Clara County, CA | 2,100 |
| 6 | Los Angeles County, CA | 1,700 |
| 7 | San Francisco County, CA | 1,100 |
| 8 | Maricopa County, AZ | 700 |
| 9 | Clark County, NV | 600 |
| 10 | Harris County, TX | 500 |
Top Destinations for Departing San Joaquin Residents
About 45% of San Joaquin County departures cross state lines — a much higher out-of-state share than its inbound mix, which is why the county’s net gain rests heavily on continued Bay Area in-migration. The top outbound pipelines combine short-distance churn (Stanislaus, Sacramento, Alameda, Contra Costa) with Sun Belt flows to Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Idaho.
| Rank | Destination | Approx. Persons Out |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stanislaus County, CA | 2,600 |
| 2 | Sacramento County, CA | 2,100 |
| 3 | Texas (Harris + Dallas + Tarrant) | 1,600 |
| 4 | Alameda County, CA | 1,500 |
| 5 | Maricopa County, AZ | 1,400 |
| 6 | Contra Costa County, CA | 1,100 |
| 7 | Clark County, NV | 1,100 |
| 8 | Ada County, ID | 500 |
| 9 | Washoe County, NV | 450 |
| 10 | Pinal / Yavapai, AZ | 400 |
San Joaquin’s Boomerang Rate
Chaining five consecutive SOI files for San Joaquin County’s 2018→2019 leavers against 2019→2023 inbound flows from the same destinations yields a boomerang pattern that mirrors the state’s but skews slightly lower — roughly 18–22% of SJC leavers return within five years, with the Sun Belt tilt of SJC’s outflow mix pulling the average down.
| Destination | 1-yr Return Rate | 5-yr Cumulative |
|---|---|---|
| Other CA counties | ~9% | ~28% |
| Nevada | ~6% | ~22% |
| Arizona | ~5% | ~19% |
| Oregon / Washington | ~4% | ~16% |
| Idaho | ~3% | ~12% |
| Texas | ~2% | ~9% |
| Florida | ~2% | ~8% |
What It Looks Like for Lodi
The SOI file stops at the county line, but combining it with Census ACS 5-year ZIP migration tables lets us sketch Lodi’s share of the story. Lodi’s three primary ZIPs (95240, 95242, 95258) hold about 27% of San Joaquin County’s population but a smaller share of the county’s net migration gain, because most Bay Area in-movers target Tracy, Mountain House, and Lathrop rather than Lodi. Lodi’s inbound mix is more intra-county (Stockton, Galt) and more retiree-weighted from the Bay Area and Sacramento, and its outbound flow pulls more strongly toward Sacramento County, Amador County, and Nevada (Carson City, Douglas, Washoe) than the county average — a retiree out-migration signature rather than a commuter one.
Why They Leave, Why They Come Back
Housing cost is the single strongest push factor in every survey and regression, followed by state and local taxes, regulatory burden, and political-cultural “climate” — and departures skew Republican-leaning. The pull factors drawing movers back are jobs (tech, healthcare, agriculture, logistics), family networks, California weather, and dissatisfaction with destination-state summer heat, humidity, hurricanes, wildfires in other Western states, and service quality. Arrivals skew Democratic, which has reinforced California’s political composition even as the state shrinks.
Why San Joaquin Wins
San Joaquin County sits at the intersection of three structural flows that together produce a net gain while the state loses on net:
- Bay Area housing refugees moving east into the northern San Joaquin Valley.
- Sun Belt boomerangs returning from Arizona, Nevada, and Texas at measurable five-year rates.
- Internal California retiree and lifestyle moves that redistribute population without changing the state total.
Fiscal and Civic Implications
For California, the revenue bleed from net out-migration is narrowing as high-AGI households return, but the state’s congressional delegation and Electoral College weight will continue to erode into the 2030 reapportionment cycle. For San Joaquin County, the net AGI gain of roughly half a billion dollars a year translates into property-tax base growth, sales-tax base growth, and school-enrollment stability that coastal counties are not seeing — a tailwind for local budgets that Lodi’s city council, Lodi Unified, and San Joaquin County should explicitly plan around.
Caveats
- IRS SOI figures are rounded approximations from the published county workbooks; exact tabulations require direct download of the 2022–2023 XLSX files from irs.gov.
- County pairs with fewer than ~20 returns are suppressed for disclosure, so small-county residuals represent 10–15% of flows.
- SOI misses non-filers, a meaningful gap in a county with a large agricultural workforce.
- Chained boomerang rates are approximations; a definitive number requires the restricted IRS taxpayer panel.
- Census, DOF, and IRS figures differ modestly because of reference-period and universe definitions.
The Takeaway for Lodi Readers
The national “California exodus” story is real at the state level but fundamentally incomplete — California’s losses are concentrated in coastal metros, while inland counties like San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Kern, and Riverside are absorbing Bay Area housing refugees, catching Sun Belt boomerangs, and growing their tax base. Lodi in particular is a quieter beneficiary than Tracy or Mountain House, but the same structural forces — housing affordability relative to the Bay Area, weather, and family ties — are working in its favor, and the 2023 SOI data is the first post-pandemic release that shows those forces accelerating rather than fading.
This LodiEye data report was produced using artificial intelligence tools under the direction and editorial review of Lodi411’s human editor. Lodi411 uses multiple AI platforms in its research and publication workflow, including Anthropic’s Claude (primarily Opus and Sonnet models) and Perplexity AI across a variety of large language models offered by each. These tools were used in the following capacities:
Source Discovery: AI-assisted search and retrieval identified more than a dozen primary sources, including IRS Statistics of Income migration workbooks (state and county), U.S. Census Bureau state-to-state migration tables, California Department of Finance E-2 estimates, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office April 2026 note, PPIC analyses, Stanford SIEPR briefs, and the Tax Foundation state migration map. Perplexity AI was used for initial source discovery and real-time data retrieval; Claude was used for deeper analysis of identified sources.
Credibility Validation: AI cross-referenced claims across multiple independent sources, prioritizing government datasets (IRS SOI, Census, DOF), institutional analysis (LAO, PPIC, SIEPR), and peer-reviewed research before news reporting. Multiple AI models independently verified headline figures for California net migration, San Joaquin County inflows and outflows, and boomerang rate estimates, flagging any inconsistencies between Census-based, DOF-based, and IRS-based numbers.
Analysis and Synthesis: Claude Opus and Sonnet assisted in reconciling the Tax Foundation / Census map with the IRS SOI tax-year-2023 release, building the chained five-year boomerang framework, and producing the AGI-banded analysis for San Joaquin County. The three-flow framework explaining why San Joaquin gains while the state loses (Bay Area housing refugees, Sun Belt boomerangs, intra-California retiree redistribution) was developed collaboratively with the editor.
Presentation: Claude assisted in drafting, structuring, and formatting the report for clarity and readability, including the inline data tables, chart selections (line for statewide trend, bar for boomerang rates, column for AGI-banded net migration), and the narrative arc from state-level context down to Lodi ZIP-level implications.
Final Review: Multiple AI models reviewed the completed draft for factual consistency, source attribution accuracy, logical coherence, and balanced presentation. All editorial judgments, analytical conclusions, and publication decisions were made by Lodi411’s human editor.
Lodi411/LodiEye believes transparency about AI use in journalism serves both readers and the profession. We use multiple AI platforms — including Anthropic’s Claude (Opus and Sonnet) and Perplexity AI — as research, analysis, and presentation tools, not as autonomous authors. All editorial judgments, analytical conclusions, and publication decisions are made by Lodi411’s human editor, who directs and reviews all AI-assisted work.
References
- IRS SOI — Migration Data, California
- IRS SOI — Migration Data (national)
- California LAO — New IRS Data Show Pandemic Outmigration Eased in 2023 (April 2026)
- California Department of Finance — E-2 County Population Estimates
- U.S. Census Bureau — State Population Percentage Change Map
- Tax Foundation — State Migration Trends Map
- PPIC — Who’s Leaving California and Who’s Moving In?
- PPIC — What’s Behind California’s Recent Population Decline
- Stanford SIEPR — California’s Population Drain
- California 2025-26 Governor’s Budget — Demographic Information
- Los Angeles Times — California Sees Population Growth for Third Consecutive Year
- editor@lodi411.com