Bakersfield attorney Steve Nichols, who came to California as an infant in 1953 – one of the millions who migrated in the post-World War II period – has given up on the state.
“I personally have bought a home out of state for retirement,” Nichols volunteered in an email this week. “I am a high-income taxpayer but don’t want all my money being wasted in the future on irresponsible projects and retirement benefits for public servants.”
“That same decision is being made by hundreds of thousands of people in the state,” Nichols continued, “but our elected officials don’t see the writing on the wall.”
Nichols has company. California has been a net loser in state-to-state migration for two-plus decades, particularly during severe recessions, such as the aerospace meltdown in the early 1990s that saw more than a million Californians leave.
Between 2007 and 2014, California lost 625,000 in net domestic migration, but despite that loss and a net decline in foreign immigration to near zero, its population continued to grow, primarily due to its having more than twice as many births as deaths.
