California Policy Lab

Recent news reports, preliminary data, and anecdotes suggest the COVID-19 pandemic is either causing or accelerating an exodus from California. The extent of any such exodus, and whether it proves to be temporary or permanent, is not yet clear — at least not in data sources traditionally used to quantify residential mobility. The stakes are high: significant population shifts could affect the size and composition of regional labor markets as well as rent and home values. Some fear that mass departures by the state’s wealthy could reduce local and state tax revenues, potentially affecting the services governments are able to provide for years to come. This policy brief uses the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a new dataset containing residential locations for all Californians with credit history, to track domestic residential moves at a quarterly frequency through the end of 2020.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.