
Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo
A property owner peers into the remains of the second floor unit where he lived with his wife, on Manasota Key, in Englewood, Florida, following the passage of Hurricane Milton, October 13, 2024.
Last spring, Ron DeSantis stripped references to climate change from state law after a hurricane season that served up a single Category 3 storm. Florida has shifted from being a swing state with pragmatic climate goals to an ultraconservative one whose governor declares climate change to be something imported by “radical green zealots.”
Political dynamics don’t always factor into new residents’ relocation decisions, and that’s certainly the case for a state that is as gorgeous and enticing as Florida is for many Americans. A rare snowstorm that only affected the peninsula’s northern reaches isn’t going change that.
In December, the Florida Chamber Foundation, the research arm of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, published its analysis of Florida’s 2024 migration trends. Not only does the state business community want Florida to become a “national economic powerhouse,” it wants to see Florida become “a top 10 global economy”—all by 2030.
That may be a lofty goal to achieve with certain factors working against the Florida economy. Although the Sunshine State remains one of the top states for in-migration, second only to Texas, there’s been a subtle shift in its migration patterns from other states. Newcomers from other states have continued to move to Florida. Researchers discovered that in 2023, 637,000 people moved in—which was only half as many as the year before. But nearly as many, 511,000, moved out. It was the largest drop in net migration in a decade. Only California had more people leaving.
Who’s leading the out-migration exodus? Young people. Nearly one-quarter of the departures from Florida were by young people between the ages of 20 and 29, with a median age of 32.4 years; a little more than one-fifth of that cohort moved in. The average population of the leavers held associate degrees or had some college credits. They left despite Florida’s low unemployment rate, which in November was 3.4 percent. Who’s moving in? Wealthier people, including retirees, who may not be working.
For Florida’s business community, that’s a flashing red light.
The state has more jobs right now than workers to fill them. There are plenty of hospitality, customer service, and transportation positions available, and supply exceeds demand. The demand, however, for health care, education, and business and finance professionals is high and the corresponding supply is low, a possible indicator of shortages to come. The report suggests that young people may not be aware of in-state openings and that businesses need to “strengthen the pipeline and awareness,” a puzzling take in the internet age.
One of the key contributors to the mass exodus is housing costs. Per capita personal income has not kept pace with median home-listing prices in Florida. Young people aspiring to homeownership may be looking to states like Texas or North Carolina, where incomes keep up with or exceed housing costs, or states like Tennessee and Georgia, where the sticker shock is not as intense and the homes themselves are potentially larger.
Rents have also increased in Florida; not as drastically as home prices, but still concerning for people starting out. But though the report notes that home prices may be stabilizing, it’s too early to know whether that trend is enough to slow the exodus.
Young people aren’t the only ones heading for the exits. Snowbirds of more modest means are also leaving the state for more affordable locations. After all, if a severe storm damages or destroys a home once, or worse, multiple times, repair and rebuilding costs can be prohibitive.
There are familiar reasons for why the cost of owning or renting a home has surged in Florida, but the big one is insurance rates, which have been skyrocketing across the country but particularly in areas that are sensitive to natural disasters. Yet the Chamber Foundation’s report minimizes natural disasters as a contributor to high home insurance costs. Not surprisingly, given the political climate, the words “climate” and “change” do not appear in the document. Instead, increased litigiousness, as exemplified by an increase in property insurance–related lawsuits, is seen as the primary contributor. (Of course, there wouldn’t be a jump in insurance-related lawsuits if there weren’t the kind of weather events that produced many insurance claims.)
Increasingly severe hurricanes have prompted insurers to leave the state, and those that remain continue to increase premiums. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, Florida’s insurer of last resort, picks up the slack but is stressed. After Hurricane Milton in October, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told CNN that Citizens was “one catastrophic storm or storm season away from insolvency.”
Young people also remain sensitive to the social and cultural factors beyond climate that the business community completely overlooks. The failure of the abortion and recreational marijuana ballot initiatives in Florida in November, along with the ongoing debates over K-12 curriculums and course purges in public colleges and universities, continue to stoke tensions.
Nevertheless, the Chamber is optimistic: “Now is the time to reinforce Florida’s brand and reputation as the best place to live, work, raise a family, visit, learn, play, relocate, and compete.” But the state could be on the brink of a serious problem. Beyond providing better information about new and existing job opportunities and tweaking some housing regulations, it’s unclear what the overarching plan is to wrestle with climate change’s impacts on Florida as a viable place to live or work over the long term.
Unlike the uber-wealthy who gamble that their portfolios or their ability to pay exorbitant insurance rates (or forgo them altogether) can see them through the next severe storm, most young people won’t gamble with money that they don’t have. If anything, the ferocious back-to-back hurricanes of 2024, Helene and Milton, may added to the numbers of Gen Z out-migrants who decide that there are less risky, more lucrative, and opportunity-rich places to live than Florida