Our senior fellow in migration studies, and one of the nation’s top demographers, Wendell Cox, has been analyzing the new Census Bureau data on county population.

Here are some of the disturbing trends he has uncovered:

During the late 2010s and before the pandemic, population growth and domestic migration transitioned toward smaller metropolitan areas from larger ones. A similar trend has become evident in the largest counties.

The ten largest counties had net domestic outmigration of 270,000 residents in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. In the peak pandemic year of 2021, the net domestic migration from these metropolitan areas increased substantially to 505,000. In 2022, they had another net domestic outmigration of 393,000.

The counties that include America’s three largest cities — NYC, LA, and Chicago — all contracted significantly. This continues an outward migration trend.