demographics

How Electricity and TV Diffused the "Population Bomb"

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:19:37 -0400

In the late sixties, India was the poster child of Third World poverty. In 1965, the monsoon rains failed to arrive, food production crashed, and much of the country was on the brink of starving. Asked for help, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have told an aide, "I'm not going to piss away foreign aid in nations where they refuse to deal with their own population problems." Johnson came around, but by the end of the decade India was viewed in the West as, at best, a basket case and, at worst, a "population bomb" that threatened the entire planet.

Given this history, it's hard not to see the success India has had feeding its people and slowing population growth as the finale to a Bollywood movie — one most Americans stopped watching in 1970. "In a recent exercise," Stanford's Martin Lewis writes in a new article for The Breakthrough, "most of my students believed that India’s total fertility rate was twice that of the United States. Many of my colleagues believed the same. In actuality, it is only 2.5, barely above the estimated U.S. rate of 2.1 in 2011, and essentially the replacement level."

What did it? Lewis created a series of fascinating maps comparing Indian fertility rates to per capita wealth, female education level, electrification, access to TV, and other metrics to answer this question. His first map is one of the most striking. It shows the entire southern half of the country, plus the northern pan handle, as having fertility rates below replacement levels.

Wealth, electricity, education, and moving to the city are all loosely correlated with lower fertility, but the strongest correlation is watching television. "The map of television ownership in India," writes Lewis, "does bear a particularly close resemblance to the fertility map." He notes that two Indian states with a low level of female education, which is traditionally inversely correlated with low fertility, still had low fertility rates, a fact that may be explained by its high levels of TV penetration. Lewis bolsters his argument by pointing to a study from India that found declining fertility after cable TV was introduced into poor neighborhoods.

How does TV act as a contraceptive? Lewis notes it may be because "many of its offerings provide a model of middle class families successfully grappling with the transition from tradition to modernity, helped by the fact that they have few children to support." It may not be TV generally, but rather soap operas specifically that paint a vision for poor women of how much better life with fewer kids might be.

Maybe the reason the West has been so slow to appreciate this Indian success story, Lewis speculates, is because it contradicts everything we've come to believe about overpopulation. Back in the late sixties, some prominent Western ecologists called for the sterilization of Indian men and the halting of food aid, so as to not prolong the suffering. A book called The Population Bomb that proposed these things sold four million copies.

Hopefully now, anyone concerned about both human development and the environment will come to see electricity, rising wealth for the poor, and even TV not as anathema to human development but, at least in many parts of the world, essential to it.

Read the article at The Breakthrough: "Population Bomb? So Wrong, How Electricity, Development, and TV Reduce Fertility"

New Metropolitan Area Definition Winners: New York, Charlotte, Grand Rapids, and Indianapolis

Wendell Cox — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:21:35 -0400

Metropolitan America continues to expand. The new Office of Management and Budget metropolitan area definitions, based upon the 2010 census indicate that the counties composing the 52 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million population increased by 1.65 million from the previous definition. This includes more than 1.4 million new residents in the previous 51 major metropolitan areas and more than 200,000 in Grand Rapids, which has become the nation's 52nd metropolitan area with more than 1 million population.

The fastest growers due to the addition of counties were New York, Charlotte, Grand Rapids, and Indianapolis. New York had a 670,000 increase in its metropolitan population, resulting from the addition of Dutchess and Orange counties. New counties also increased the population of the Charlotte metropolitan area by 459,000, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area by 215,000 and Indianapolis by 132,000. The largest percentage gains were in Grand Rapids (28%) and Charlotte (26%).

Ten metropolitan areas had population increases under 100,000 from expansion of the metropolitan area definitions.

For the most part, the major metropolitan area county components were unchanged, with 31 having the same boundaries as under the previous definition. Six metropolitan areas were reduced in geographic size.

The changes in population for 2000 based upon the new metropolitan area definitions are indicated in the table. The components of metropolitan areas are determined by commuting patterns to urban areas (not to the historical core municipalities).

Effect of New Metropolitan Area Geographic Definition on Population: 2010
Population Change Rank	Metropolitan Area	Old Definition	New Definition (2013)	Change	% Change
12	Atlanta, GA	5,268,860	5,286,728	17,868	0.3%
15	Austin, TX	1,716,289	1,716,289	0	0.0%
15	Baltimore, MD	2,710,489	2,710,489	0	0.0%
15	Birmingham, AL	1,128,047	1,128,047	0	0.0%
15	Boston, MA-NH	4,552,402	4,552,402	0	0.0%
15	Buffalo, NY	1,135,509	1,135,509	0	0.0%
2	Charlotte, NC-SC	1,758,038	2,217,012	458,974	26.1%
15	Chicago, IL-IN-WI	9,461,105	9,461,105	0	0.0%
46	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	2,130,151	2,114,580	(15,571)	-0.7%
15	Cleveland, OH	2,077,240	2,077,240	0	0.0%
7	Columbus, OH	1,836,536	1,901,974	65,438	3.6%
8	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	6,371,773	6,426,214	54,441	0.9%
15	Denver, CO	2,543,482	2,543,482	0	0.0%
15	Detroit, MI	4,296,250	4,296,250	0	0.0%
3	Grand Rapids, MI	774,160	988,938	214,778	27.7%
15	Hartford, CT	1,212,381	1,212,381	0	0.0%
49	Houston, TX	5,946,800	5,920,416	(26,384)	-0.4%
4	Indianapolis. IN	1,756,241	1,887,877	131,636	7.5%
15	Jacksonville, FL	1,345,596	1,345,596	0	0.0%
48	Kansas City, MO-KS	2,035,334	2,009,342	(25,992)	-1.3%
15	Las Vegas, NV	1,951,269	1,951,269	0	0.0%
15	Los Angeles, CA	12,828,837	12,828,837	0	0.0%
51	Louisville, KY-IN	1,283,566	1,235,708	(47,858)	-3.7%
13	Memphis, TN-MS-AR	1,316,100	1,324,829	8,729	0.7%
15	Miami, FL	5,564,635	5,564,635	0	0.0%
15	Milwaukee,WI	1,555,908	1,555,908	0	0.0%
6	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	3,279,833	3,348,859	69,026	2.1%
5	Nashville, TN	1,589,934	1,670,890	80,956	5.1%
11	New Orleans. LA	1,167,764	1,189,866	22,102	1.9%
1	New York, NY-NJ-PA	18,897,109	19,567,410	670,301	3.5%
15	Oklahoma City, OK	1,252,987	1,252,987	0	0.0%
15	Orlando, FL	2,134,411	2,134,411	0	0.0%
15	Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	5,965,343	5,965,343	0	0.0%
15	Phoenix, AZ	4,192,887	4,192,887	0	0.0%
15	Pittsburgh, PA	2,356,285	2,356,285	0	0.0%
15	Portland, OR-WA	2,226,009	2,226,009	0	0.0%
15	Providence, RI-MA	1,600,852	1,600,852	0	0.0%
15	Raleigh, NC	1,130,490	1,130,490	0	0.0%
52	Richmond, VA	1,258,251	1,208,101	(50,150)	-4.0%
15	Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	4,224,851	4,224,851	0	0.0%
10	Rochester, NY	1,054,323	1,079,671	25,348	2.4%
15	Sacramento, CA	2,149,127	2,149,127	0	0.0%
47	St. Louis,, MO-IL	2,812,896	2,787,701	(25,195)	-0.9%
50	Salt Lake City, UT	1,124,197	1,087,873	(36,324)	-3.2%
15	San Antonio, TX	2,142,508	2,142,508	0	0.0%
15	San Diego, CA	3,095,313	3,095,313	0	0.0%
15	San Francisco-Oakland, CA	4,335,391	4,335,391	0	0.0%
15	San Jose, CA	1,836,911	1,836,911	0	0.0%
15	Seattle, WA	3,439,809	3,439,809	0	0.0%
15	Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	2,783,243	2,783,243	0	0.0%
14	Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	1,671,683	1,676,822	5,139	0.3%
9	Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	5,582,170	5,636,232	54,062	1.0%

	Total	167,861,575	169,512,899	1,651,324	1.0%

Exodus to Suburbs Continues Through 2012

Wendell Cox — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:33:48 -0500

The latest US Census Bureau migration data shows that people continue to move from principal cities (which include core cities) in metropolitan areas to what the Census Bureau characterizes as "suburbs" (Note). Between 2011 and 2012, a net 1.5 million people moved from principal cities to suburbs (principal cities lost 1.5 million people to the suburbs). The movement to the suburbs was pervasive. In each of the age categories, there was a net migration from the principal cities to the suburbs. There was also net migration to the "suburbs" in all categories of educational attainment.

These data are in contrast to claims that people are moving from a suburbs to central cities. Virtually none of the migration data has shown any such movement. Moreover, the city population estimates produced for 2011 by the Census Bureau, which indicated stronger central city growth have been shown to be simply allocations of growth within counties, rather than genuine estimates of population increase.

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Note on Census Bureau "Suburbs:"

The movement to the suburbs is undoubtedly understated in the Census Bureau estimates, because many jurisdictions included in the "principal city" classification are in fact suburbs. The Real State of Metropolitan America showed that virtually all population growth in principal cities was either in suburban jurisdictions classified as principal cities, or in cities with substantial expenses of post-World War II automobile oriented (or suburban) land-use patterns. The remaining core cities that are largely only urban core in land use accounted for only 2% of principal city growth from 2000 to 2008.

For a decade, the Census Bureau has used a "principal city" designation instead of the former "central city" term. All former "central cities" are "principal cities." The Census Bureau characterizes all other areas of metropolitan areas as "suburbs." In fact, many of the principal cities are functionally suburbs, having barely existed or not existed at all at the beginning of the great automobile oriented suburban exodus following World War II.

Examples of such suburban principal cities, with their metropolitan areas in parentheses, are Hoffman Estates (Chicago), Arlington (Dallas-Fort Worth), Aurora (Denver), Fountain Valley (Los Angeles), Eden Prairie (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Mesa (Phoenix), Hillsboro (Portland), San Marcos (San Diego), Pleasanton (San Francisco), Kent (Seattle), Virginia Beach (Virginia Beach-Norfolk) and many others.

Census Bureau Finds 3.2 Million More People in Salt Lake City?

Wendell Cox — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:46:37 -0400

Today the US Bureau of the Census released a fascinating report on metropolitan area population growth by radius from the corresponding city halls. The report provides summary tables indicating the metropolitan areas that had the greatest and least growth, for example, near the downtown areas. I was surprised to find that Salt Lake City had done so well, having seen is population rise from 336,000 to 355,000 within a two mile radius of city hall (Table 3-7). That struck me as odd. A two mile radius encompasses an area of only 12.6 square miles, for a density of about 28,000 per square mile. Only the city San Francisco has densities that high over such a large area in the West. Moreover, all of the municipality of Salt Lake City is within two miles of city hall, and the 2010 census counted only 186,000 people in the entire city of more nearly 110 square miles.

In reviewing the backup file, Worksheets "Pop2000", Pop2010", "Density2000" and "Density 2010"), I discovered that Salt Lake City's data was actually that of San Francisco and that metropolitan Salt Lake City was credited with 3.2 more people than it had Another surprise was that the San Francisco metropolitan area was reported with 260,000 people, less than one-third the population reported for the core city of San Francisco in 2010. Santa Fe had a reported population 3.4 million people, about 1.4 million people more than live in the entire state of which it is the capital. Further, in at least 35 cases, the populations for metropolitan areas did not correspond to those reported in the 2010 census.

Obviously this is the kind of automated (computer) error that can happen to anyone or any agency. Nonetheless, an immediate correction would be appropriate.

With considerable effort, we were able to get through to the public information office at the Bureau of the Census to notify them of the error.

Until a corrected report is issued, any analysis of the report will need to be very cautious indeed. We look forward to the revision.

A Summary of 2011 Commuting Data Released Today

Wendell Cox — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:40:25 -0400

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey released its annual one-year snapshot of demographic data in the United States. As usual, this included journey to work (commuting data), which is summarized in the table below.

American Community Survey Commuting Data
2011, 2010 & 2000
ESTIMATES of Total Commuters	2000	2010	2011
Drive Alone	97.10	104.86	105.64
Car/Van Pool	15.63	13.27	13.39
Transit	5.87	6.77	6.96
Bicycle	0.49	0.73	0.78
Walk	3.76	3.80	3.89
Motorcyle, Taxi & Other	1.24	1.60	1.63
Work at Home	4.18	5.92	5.99
Total	128.28	136.94	138.27
In Millions

MARKET SHARE
Drive Alone	75.70%	76.57%	76.40%
Car/Van Pool	12.19%	9.69%	9.68%
Transit	4.57%	4.94%	5.03%
Bicycle	0.38%	0.53%	0.56%
Walk	2.93%	2.77%	2.81%
Motorcyle, Taxi & Other	0.97%	1.17%	1.18%
Work at Home	3.26%	4.33%	4.34%
Total	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%

Sources: 2000, 2010 Census & 2011 American Community Survey

Trends Since 2010

As estimated employment improved from 137.9 million in 2010 to 138.3 from 2010 to 2011, there was an increase of 800,000 in the number of commuters driving alone, which, as usual, represented the vast majority of commuting (105.6 million daily one way trips), at 76.40 percent. This was not enough, however, to avoid a small (0.17 percentage point) decline in market share.

Car pooling experienced a rare increase of 120,000 commuters, which translated into a 0.1 percentage point loss in market share, to 9.68 percent. Transit increased 190,000 commuters, and had a 0.09 percentage point increase in market share, to 5.03 percent. This brought transit's market share to above its 2008 share of 5.01 percent and near its 1990 market share of 5.11 percent.

Working at home increased by 70,000, with a modest 0.1 percentage point increase from 2010.

Trends Since 2000

Even with declining falling household incomes and rising gasoline prices, single-occupant commuting continued to rise between 2000 and 2011. Solo drivers increased nearly 8 million, more than the total transit commuting in 2011. Car pooling continued its long-term decline, falling 2.2 million. Transit did well (as would be expected with unfavorable economic conditions and unprecedented gasoline price increases), as we noted last year, having added 1.1 million commuters. This was spread thinly around the country, though with a 70 percent concentration in New York and Washington, DC. Over the period, working at home experienced an increase of 1.8 million, the largest increase outside solo driving.

Media Attention

For the most part the commuting data was ignored by the media --- and for good reason. The one year changes were predictably modest. However, the exception was USA Today, with a top of the webpage "Fewer Americans Driving Solo" headline. In fact, as noted above, the short term and long term trends reflected an increase in solo driving. Moreover, reading the story it would be easy to get the impression that a sea change had occurred in how people get to work. To its credit, however, USA Today appropriately labeled the likely reasons for the mountains it made into molehills --- the economy and gasoline prices.

Tokyo: Population Swan Dive Predicted

Wendell Cox — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:58:27 -0400

In a recent Evolving Urban Form article, we speculated that Tokyo, the world's largest urban area (population more than 35 million) could be displaced by fast-growing Jakarta or Delhi as early as 2030. If the prediction of central jurisdiction administrators and academics come true, Tokyo could be passed by many other urban areas in population by 2100.

The Japan Times reports forecasts that the population of the Prefecture of Tokyo, the central jurisdiction of the metropolitan area, could decline by nearly 50 percent (chart) between 2010 and 2100 (Note). Yet, while the overall population is dropping in half, the elderly population would increase by more than 20 percent. The resulting far less favorable ratio of elderly to the working population would present unprecedented social and economic challenges.

The article provides no information on the population of the entire urban area in 2100. The Prefecture of Tokyo constitutes somewhat over one third of the present population of the urban area.

During the last census period (between 2005 2010) the four prefecture Tokyo metropolitan area (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba), gained approximately 1,100,000 new residents, while the balance of the country was losing 1,400,000 residents. Japan is forecast to suffer substantial population losses in the decades to come. The United Nations forecasts that its population will decline from approximately 125 million in 2010 to 90 million in 2100. This is the optimistic scenario. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research forecasts a drop to under 50 million, a more than 60 percent population reduction.

There are serious concerns about the projected population decline. According to the Japan Times, the researchers said that " ... it will be crucial to take measures to turn around the falling birthrate and enhance social security measures for the elderly," A professor the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, expressed concern that "If the economies of developing countries continue growing, the international competitiveness of major companies in Tokyo will dive."

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Note: the Prefecture of Tokyo government is called the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This term can mislead, because the prefecture itself is not the metropolitan area, but only part of the four prefecture metropolitan area. The pre-– amalgamation predecessor of the current city of Toronto was called the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Like the Prefecture of Tokyo, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto comprised only part of the Toronto metropolitan area. Confusion over these terms not only resulted in incorrect press reports, but even misled some academic researchers to treat these sub-metropolitan jurisdictions as metropolitan areas.

Observations on Exurban Trends

Wendell Cox — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:12:20 -0400

Getting the Migration Story Straight: Analysts continue to misunderstand the recent metropolitan area census estimates. Much of the misunderstanding arises from a misinterpretation of a chart produced by the Brookings Institution, which indicates that the rate of population growth has fallen in exurban counties and was, last year, less than the rate of growth in what Brookings calls emerging suburbs and "city/high density suburbs." However, the Brookings chart characterizes only total population growth, which is the combination of the natural growth rate, net international migration and net domestic migration. In other words, the Brookings Institution chart includes both people who move between areas of the United States and the net of those who move from outside the United States, are born or died.

Perhaps the most befuddled was the Arch Daily, which says that "people are leaving the suburbs and once again flocking to the cities..." In fact exurban and suburban areas continue to grow, though their growth rates have fallen. The highly touted decline in exurban growth rates is for one year only (2010-2011) and represents only the first year in the last 20 that the exurban has trailed that of the "city/high density suburbs." It is also the first year out of the last 20 that the "city/high density suburbs" did not trail both the suburbs and exurbs.

However, aggregate growth rates say nothing about moving to or from cities. Only one of the components of population change, domestic migration, can possibility indicate movement from the suburbs and exurbs to the cities. People who migrate from outside the nation, for example, are not moving from suburbs to the city (the suburbs of Paris don't count). People who are born or die are not migrating from the suburbs to the cities (where they might come from or are going has been the source of endless debate through history). The only people who can possibly be moving from suburbs and exurbs to the city are domestic migrants ---people who move within the United states.

Figure 1 indicates the components of population change in the core counties of the nation's 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population (there are no city level migration data).

There was a net gain in natural growth of 556,000 (births minus deaths)
There was a net gain in international migration of 295,000 (people who moved from outside the nation to the core counties.
There was a net loss in domestic migrants of 67,000. These US residents moved away from the core counties.

As we indicated in Still Moving to the Suburbs and Exurbs: The 2011 Census Estimates, there was net domestic migration to the suburbs and exurbs between 2010 and 2011. There was net domestic migration out of the central counties (there is no "city" migration data). This is illustrated in Figure 2, which has been annotated to make the actual moving of people clear.

If it should ever occur, it will be very clear when people are moving to the cores from the suburbs and exurbs. There will be PLUS domestic migration numbers to the core counties and MINUS domestic migration numbers from the suburbs and exurbs. Until that time any flocking (though that is too strong a word for current trends) will be away from the cores and to the suburbs and exurbs.

Of course, in the greatest economic downturn in more than 75 years, domestic migration has slowed considerably. It is not surprising, therefore that population growth rates in the exurbs and suburbs have fallen, since far fewer people are moving.

All Domestic Migration was to the Suburbs: Finally, all of the net domestic migration in the nation was to the suburbs and exurbs of the nation's major metropolitan areas (Also see Figure 2).

On the Health of Exurban Housing Markets

On a related subject, University of South Florida Professor Steven Polzin offered an interesting comment on the Planetizen site:

While I have not explicitly researched the distribution of home foreclosures as a function of the transportation costs of residents, I would caution analysts to more fully explore the nature of the housing foreclosure trend before jumping to the assumption that transportation costs were a significant contributor to geographically differential rates of foreclosure. Foreclosures were more prominent in homes purchased more recently relative to the housing crash. These new home purchasers were more often highly leveraged, had little equity in their home, and in many cases younger workers with less job seniority and more susceptible to layoffs. In addition, in fringe areas that had been growing there was a high concentration of homes all purchased recently. Thus, new growth areas were more susceptible to both foreclosures and the cascading effect of home depreciation spreading based on nearby foreclosed properties.

In a new suburb a young financially extended family may lose their job, have no equity in the house and quickly lose their house. Its depreciated value is soon reflected in adjacent appraisals cascading the stress throughout relatively fragile neighborhoods. On the other hand in established neighborhoods only a relatively small share of the homes changed hands near the peak of the building bubble. Thus, many of those homeowners had far more equity in their home and perhaps more job seniority and security enabling them to whether a housing downturn. In addition, the diversity of home ages and types and the less frequent occurrence of foreclosed properties will control the pace at which home value depreciation will cascade through the neighborhood.

If commuting cost was as big a contributor to suburban fringe foreclosure rates then one would have expected downtown condominiums to weather the housing bubble. In many locations like Florida large clusters of new downtown residential properties suffered the same rapid depreciation as did suburban fringe areas. The concentration of new units seemed to be more critical than the location.

Similar sentiments have been posted on these pages from time to time, such as here and here.

2011 Canada Census: Strong Growth & Suburbanization Continues

Wendell Cox — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:51:06 -0500

Statistics Canada has just released the first results of the 2011 census. The nation's population rose to 33.5 million, from 31.6 million in 2006. This is a 5.9 percent growth rate, up from a 5.4 percent rate between 2001 and 2006 and nearly one-half above the 4.0 percent growth rate from 1996 to 2001.

Suburbanization continued apace in Canada's largest metropolitan areas. Overall, the suburbs accounted for 83 percent of the population growth in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, with 17 percent of the growth in the central municipalities. In the other major metropolitan areas (Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton), the central municipalities themselves encompass nearly all of the suburban development, so that the core-suburban population increase proportion is masked.

On The Move

Matthew Leiphon — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:36:49 -0500

Overall migration rates in America appear to be down in the wake of the Great Recession, reaching the lowest levels recorded since the 1940's. While some statisticians argue that changes in data collection over time have led to an overstatement of such changes, there seems little doubt that "interstate migration has been trending downward for many years," regardless of recent recessionary effects. That said, Americans remain a mobile people. Each year, millions of Americans make an interstate move. While overall migration rates may be down, "the commonly held belief that Americans are more mobile than their European counterparts still appears to hold true." In good times and bad, the draw of opportunity in a new state still remains a siren call for many Americans.

Adding a bit of information on current American migration patterns, Atlas Van Lines, a major American moving company, recently released it's annual data on interstate moves. A plurality of states (24) had a balance between inbound and outbound moves. Magnet states included the upper south (TN and NC), the capital region (DC, VA, and MD), and hubs of energy production, including North Dakota, Texas, and Alaska. Many Midwest and Great Lakes states had more outbound movers than inbound. While the Atlas numbers don't mesh completely with Census migration estimates, they may lend some support to Wendell Cox's argument that domestic migration may be returning to some sort of normalcy. Simply put, people continue to go where they can find work, economic opportunity, reasonable costs of living, and good weather.

The Trend Away from Illinois

Steve Bartin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:49:54 -0500

Illinois has become famous for producing Barack Obama, but now another sort of fame is in the news. The Illinois Policy Institute has come out with a devastating report on “the state of Illinois”:

Illinois residents are fleeing the state. When people leave, they take their purchasing power, entrepreneurial activity and taxable income with them. For more than 15 years, residents have left Illinois at a rate of one person every 10 minutes.

Recent data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that, in 2009, Illinois netted a loss of people to 43 states, including each of its neighbors – Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Iowa. Over the course of the entire year, the state saw a net of 40,000 people leave Illinois for another state.

The data reflects a continuation of a trend of out-migration from Illinois that has lasted more than a decade. Between 1995 and 2009, the state lost on a net basis more than 806,000 people to out-migration.

When people leave, they take their income and their talent with them. In 2009 alone, Illinois lost residents who took with them a net of $1.5 billion in taxable income. From 1995 to 2009, Illinois lost out on a net of $26 billion in taxable income to out-migration.

Illinois lost one person every 10 minutes between 1995 and 2009. Will the people who stay in Illinois demand reform before more wealth and jobs leave the state?