The Blue State Family Exodus: Families Are Migrating to Red and Purple States

You would think that Minnesota is a mecca for families, judging by the adulatory press coverage that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s family policy record in the state has received from liberal professors and pundits. Celebrating the vice presidential nominee’s moves to expand the child tax credit for poor families, advance paid family leave, and provide universal school lunch in the state, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote these family policies provide “further evidence that one major party cares about children and families; and the other does not.” She added: “Democrats should adopt a new agenda: Make America Minnesota Already” (MAMA). And fair’s fair: Gov. Walz did implement some policies that we think helped Minnesota families.

But Rampell might be surprised to learn that Minnesota isn’t a magnet for families with children: quite the opposite, in fact. Although a number of Minnesota’s progressive family policies are popular in polls of parents, when it comes to family policy, broadly understood, the revealed preferences of parents often diverge from their stated preferences for parts of the “MAMA”-state agenda. More families with children moved out of Minnesota in 2021 and 2022 than moved into the state, according to our analysis of the American Community Survey. In fact, Minnesota ranked in the worst third for family migration, as one of 18 states in the nation that saw more families leave than move into the state.

Minnesota is no outlier. Parents are not generally moving towards states with the preferred family policies of progressives. They are moving out of these states, including Democratic states, like New York, California, Massachusetts, and Oregon, all well known for their liberal family policies. Blue states that voted for Democratic presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020 lost 213,000 families with children in 2021 and 2022 (a 0.7% net decline), while red states that voted for President Trump in both elections gained 181,000 families (a 0.6% net gain). Meanwhile, purple states that flipped between the two parties in the last presidential elections gained 38,000 families (a 0.4% gain).¹ 

Top 15 States that Have Lost the Most Families (Net Emigration Rate, 2021-2022)

1. New York (D) – 1.9% decline, net loss of 71,000
2. Alaska (R) – 1.2% decline, net loss of 2,000 
3. California (D) – 1.2% decline, net loss of 92,000
4. Oregon (D) – 0.9% decline, net loss of 7,000
5. Washington (D) – 0.7% decline, net loss of 12,000
6. Massachusetts (D) – 0.7% decline, net loss of 10,000
7. Illinois (D) – 0.6% decline, net loss of 17,000
8. Hawaii (D) – 0.6% decline, net loss of 1,000
9. Louisiana (R) – 0.5% decline, net loss of 5,000
10. Colorado (D) – 0.5% decline, net loss of 6,000
11. Virginia (D) – 0.4% decline, net loss of 7,000
12. Wisconsin (P) – 0.3% decline, net loss of 4,000
13. Minnesota (D) – 0.3% decline, net loss of 4,000
14. Maryland (D) – 0.3% decline, net loss of 3,000
15. Utah (R) – 0.3% decline, net loss of 2,000

Note: D=Voted Democratic in last two presidential elections; P=Voted Democratic
and Republican in last two presidential elections; R=Voted Republican in last two presidential elections.

What we are now seeing in the United States is that families with children, by the hundreds of thousands, are moving away from states with avowedly generous family policies—from refundable child tax credits to universal school lunches—and to states without these policies. California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon, for instance, have at least two of these policies. And yet in recent years, all five of these progressive states have seen more families leave than move into them.

A few more conservative states do show up in the list of major family-losing states, like Louisiana and Alaska, but the list of family-gaining states is, likewise, dominated by red states: Idaho, Montana, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee all show up in the top third for state net family migration. Of course, some politically middle-of-the-road states get a lot of families, too, like Arizona and Georgia, as well as Democratic-leaning New Hampshire and Nevada. Here’s the net migration-driven growth rate in the number of families with children for each state in 2021 and 2022: 

Top 15 States that Have Gained the Most Families (Net Immigration, 2021-2022)

1. Idaho (R) – 2.3% increase, net gain of 9,000
2. New Hampshire (D) – 2.1% increase, net gain of 5,000
3. Montana (R) – 1.8% increase, net gain of 4,000
4. South Carolina (R) – 1.5% increase, net gain of 15,000
5. South Dakota (R) – 1.2% increase, net gain of 2,000
6. Arizona (P) – 1.1% increase, net gain of 16,000
7. Connecticut (D) – 1.1% increase, net gain of 8,000
8. Nevada (D) – 1.1% increase, net gain of 7,000
9. Vermont (D) – 1.1% increase, net gain of 1,000
10. Georgia (P) – 1.0% increase, net gain of 22,000
11. Maine (D) – 1.0% increase, net gain of 3,000
12. Oklahoma (R) – 1.0% increase, net gain of 8,000
13. Florida (R) – 0.9% increase, net gain of 38,000
14. Tennessee (R) – 0.9% increase, net gain of 13,000
15. Texas (R) – 0.8% increase, net gain of 53,000

Note: D=Voted Democratic in last two presidential elections; P=Voted Democratic
and Republican in last two presidential elections; R=Voted Republican in last two presidential elections.

Obviously, a lot of this movement was related to COVID, with families fleeing cities looking for suburban and rural places with more space, places where remote work for parents was easier. But predominantly red and purple states in the Sunbelt and Rocky Mountain West were also more likely to have school districts that re-opened more quickly amidst the pandemic than many blue states, as well as new school choice laws that make it easier for parents to send their kids to better schools. Economically, these states have also attracted parents looking for places with lower taxes and strong job growth. Finally, red states have generally resisted letting their schools and sports be guided by avant-garde gender theories. All these educational, economic, and cultural factors help explain the red state appeal to families with children looking to relocate.

These patterns of family migration complicate the usual progressive narrative about family policy. The “G.O.P. has seemingly gone out of its way to undermine families and children,” argued the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, pointing to the Republican Party’s opposition to a host of policies he believes would help families. The Left’s assumption here is that policies that steer more benefits and transfers to families are the most important to parents raising children across the country. Parents want “MAMA”-state policies, to paraphrase the Washington Post’s Rampell. To reiterate: yes, many of these policies are desirable to families, and some help them. But they’re not enough to offset the cavalcade of other problems, many of them government-created, that often bedevil blue states, from homelessness to high housing costs, that make them less attractive to families with children.

That’s why family migratory patterns show families moving away from states with the policies Democrats paint as family friendly. While we do not deny the potential appeal (and value) of some of these policies—like child tax credits and paid parental leave—the revealed preferences of most parents point to a different set of policies being more important for families in today’s America. No amount of tax credits will ever be more valuable to a family than safe streets and decent housing for middle-class earners (a point acknowledged by Kristof himself). Parental leave will never outweigh a good job market. School choice (or at least inoffensive and effective public schools) matters more to parents than free school lunches. And, to be frank, most parents object to policies that force their daughters to face biological males on the playing field or in the locker room. Today, the family-friendly policies and cultural distinctives that matter most for parents are more likely to be found, not in blue states, but in red (and purple) ones. 

All this might help explain why, despite passing a number of pro-family policies, Minnesota’s family migration rate flipped from being net positive from 2015 to 2018, to net negative per year under Governor Walz from 2019 to 2022. The subsidies he offered to families just weren’t enough to persuade them to put up with the fallout of the broader “MAMA”-state policy agenda, from falling student performance to rising rates of crime and disorder.

Lyman Stone is senior fellow and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. Brad Wilcox, Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, is the author of Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.

1. These numbers do not sum due to rounding, migration between states of the same political orientation, and migration from Puerto Rico.