During Covid, the U.S. reverted to our old tradition of federalism – and then embraced gubernatorial dictatorship. As result of this strange and shocking institutional revolution, the U.S. witnessed a dramatic rise in policy variance. Some parts of the U.S., like Florida and Texas, returned to near-normalcy in a matter of months. Others, like California and New York, became and remain soft police states.
We’ve now spent the better part of two years arguing about which states have the best policies. Due to this resurgence of federalism, however, U.S. residents can do much more than bicker. They can opt for self-help. If you think Covid policy in your area is too strict, you can move to a laxer state. If you think Covid policy in your area is too lax, you can move to a stricter state. To this extent, you’re free to choose.
Logically speaking, net migration could easily flow from lax states to strict states. (“Get me out of this death trap!”) But at least to me, it seems like the opposite is the case. Lots of people move from strict states to lax states. Hardly anyone goes the other way.
The obvious counter, however, is that I live in an anti-lockdown bubble. In total, I’ve spent about five months of Covid away from home, always in search of greater freedom and sociability. It’s only natural, then, that I would know a lot of freedom-seekers – and hardly ever meet security-seekers. Indeed, since security-seekers keep to themselves, they rarely even meet each other.
What’s really going on? As usual, no decent data googles, so I decided to run some informal surveys. Results:
How many people do you personally know who have moved in order to live with fewer Covid rules?
— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) November 30, 2021
How many people do you personally know who have moved in order to live with more Covid rules?
— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) November 30, 2021
22% of people know someone who migrated for laxer rules, but only 7% know someone who migrated for stricter rules, for a ratio of over 3:1. Quite consistent with my experience. Assuming the difference is genuine, what explains it? The leading possibilities:
1. Young people are more intrinsically willing to move, and are net losers from Covid regs because their personal risk is low.
2. Deep down, people care more about freedom than security. Since actions speak louder than words, people’s rhetoric (and voting) are much more pro-regulation than their locational decisions. This arguably violates Hanania’s rule that the left cares more about politics than the right, but still seems plausible.
3. The risk-averse want more Covid regs. But risk-averse people also dislike change, and moving is a huge life change. As a result, the people with the most to gain from moving to Covid-strict states are the most reluctant to move anywhere.
If you know of any relevant evidence, I’m all ears.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew_FL
Dec 7 2021 at 10:15am
Anecdotally, I’ve seen more out of state license plates in the last year and a half than I ever have before.
Kevin Jackson
Dec 7 2021 at 10:20am
There’s a fourth pssibility to consider: if you favor stricter COVID regulations, you can apply those personally, by staying at home, wearing a mask, etc., even if there are no government enforced regulations. But the reverse isn’t true.
J Mann
Dec 7 2021 at 10:41am
Signed on to say this.
If we model someone who prefers more security, they can get security best by staying home and limiting contacts.
They might favor restrictions on others because they want Covid to be over so they can go out and about, but as long as any US states have substantial covid levels, so will the others.
In other words, moving from Florida or New Jersey to Australia or Iceland might be a substantial improvement for a security-preferring person, but moving from Florida to New Jersey is probably not going to be.
BC
Dec 7 2021 at 11:43am
@Kevin Jackson: If one were to argue against Covid regulations on the basis that one could apply them “personally, by staying at home, wearing a mask, etc., even if there are no government enforced regulations,” then the pro-regulation side would probably argue that regulations would allow them to not have to stay at home because the regs would reduce spread, etc. So, then the question remains why don’t people seem to move to high reg states to allow them to gain those purported benefits?
@J Mann: Similarly, if one were to argue against Covid regulations in NJ on the basis that they won’t do much good unless FL imposes similar regulations, then the pro-regulation side would probably respond that every little bit helps, i.e., that regs in NJ would still provide some benefits, just not as much benefit as would be the case if FL were also to impose regs. So, again, why don’t people seem to move to NJ to gain those purported benefits.
More generally, saying that people don’t move to high-reg states because the regulations don’t produce much benefit is actually an anti-regulation argument. A pro-regulation argument presumes that the regulations would be expected to produce some net benefit. Then, the question becomes why people don’t seem to move to high-reg states to gain those benefits?
Kevin Jackson
Dec 7 2021 at 1:01pm
That’s a fair point. My possibility isn’t enough to explain lack of migration on its own. But in a world where 1) most people don’t move (according to Bryan’s Twitter polls at least) 2) you believe that masks and vaccines provide a great deal of personal protection and 3) prevalence of COVID between states doesn’t vary significantly (ie the difference between the peak and trough of a COVID wave is greater than the difference between any two states), then the ability to protect yourself could make the difference between moving and not.
We would need more days to know for sure. During the last wave, there was a point where the south had a significantly higher case rate than the rest of the country, that could provide a natural experiment.
James Kibler
Dec 8 2021 at 5:46am
@BC
Perhaps because many people can achieve some reasonable proportion of the benefit of restrictions (say 60%) by individually isolating, masking etc. at a tiny fraction of the cost of moving. The marginal benefit of moving (the remaining expected safety) is far outweighed by the marginal cost of moving.
Emily
Dec 7 2021 at 10:24am
If you’re in an area where there are lax restrictions and it makes you uncomfortable, you can just choose to not go out. If you work from home (which the people who are really into restrictions disproportionately do), and you don’t have kids, you can get the risk level you want without having to move.
Infovores
Dec 7 2021 at 1:40pm
I think this is exactly right.
As an aside, many working from home seem to have forgotten that their lifestyle depends on people who can’t WFH:
“But in the 21st century, reason and truth-seeking seem optional. Our technology disguises reality. We want something, and it shows up on our doorstep. Magic! Back in April and May of 2000, I recall many friends expressing shock and anger that there were people who refused to lock down and instead went to work. How stupid and stubborn to not participate in the lockdown! I had to remind my friends that it was thanks to such misanthropes that food was being delivered to their doorsteps.”
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/enchanted-beliefs-1130
BC
Dec 7 2021 at 10:35am
Perhaps, this is just semantics, but I might modify (2) to say that people don’t believe that the Covid regs really provide much security (stop spread or severity significantly). So, they may still “care” about security.
If I were a defender of Covid regs, I might add another explanation that (4) areas with less Covid regs like TX and FL tend to be less densely populated than places like NY and CA. So, perhaps people are fleeing to TX and FL not to escape Covid regs per se but to go to less densely populated areas where it is easier to protect oneself from Covid. That’s not really an argument for more Covid regs in places like TX and FL, but it might be a defense of Covid regs in urban areas of CA and NY. It’s certainly no argument for nationwide Covid regs either.
Dylan
Dec 7 2021 at 11:37am
I think this and Daniel’s post below are likely correct. Correlation is not causation. Living in New York, I know plenty of people who moved to Florida during the pandemic, but also quite a few that moved to California Weather, more space, and opportunity for outdoor activities were the motivators I heard about most, and indeed…of people I knew that moved to Florida from New York, lax covid policies in their adopted home are a chief complaint* (I admit, this could just be signaling for their blue friends).
The other big move motivator that people talk less about is cost of living and taxes. Most of my friends were in positions where they could, at least temporarily, maintain the same income, but move to a place with more space and much lower taxes. Given that all of the things that make NYC a great place to live were shut down, paying a premium to live in a 500sqft apartment no longer felt like the best choice.
And finally, the vast majority of people I knew that moved during the pandemic, did it to be closer to family, wherever they were. Which meant people moved back home to places all over the country, or elsewhere, some with stricter policies (like most of Europe) and some that were more lax (most of the rest of the U.S.)
*I do have one friend that moved to Nashville recently, and the vaccine mandate to go places was a big part of the appeal. She’s otherwise very progressive though, so you folks in TN might not be happy if too many of her friends join her.
Vera
Dec 7 2021 at 6:10pm
Yes. Obviously, stricter rules were imposed in places with bad outbreaks or bad outlook. And equally obviously, Bryan is not polling people randomly.
Daniel Carroll
Dec 7 2021 at 11:17am
People move for jobs and cost of living – taxes and real estate, mostly. WFH is pushing upper income people out of high density states – why pay more for less? Moving to blue cities in red states – in other words, split governance. Real estate shortages are closing the gap on housing costs (temporarily?), but the impetus is still there.
High tax, high priced states are also highly restrictive on Covid. However, covid rules tend to be bimodal – either authoritarian or anything goes, darn the consequences of either.
I don’t think there is a need to get into the reliability of twitter polls.
Jared
Dec 7 2021 at 1:42pm
Potential 4, building off of Daniel: the average home in a low-rules state retails for far less than the average home in a high-rules state. The costs of the two options (outside of any COVID considerations) are strongly asymmetric, even if the person can work remotely heading in either direction. If you’re in a low-rules state but don’t like it, the cheaper option is self-isolation, not moving. If you’re in a high-rules state but don’t like it, you’re likely reducing your cost of living by moving. If you have work-from-home, the pandemic might have been the opportunity you were looking for to relocate without a job change.
Ryan M
Dec 7 2021 at 11:53pm
Then there are those who live in blue states but who lack the ability to pick up and move.
I agree that there is much to learn from federalism at work – lessons that the left has steadfastly refused to learn. But the existence of those police States is generally illegal and should not be tolerated. Conservatives often make too much of federalism- as if the awfulness of some federal policy is somehow cured by it’s happening at the local level.
Local tyranny is no less tyrannical.
Diana Weatherby
Dec 8 2021 at 2:07am
I have not done any polling but it does seem like blue states have more tech jobs that could go remote and many red rural states have a much cheaper cost of living. It would seem highly likely that people would flow from high density areas to low density areas if jobs did not force them to stay.
I’m sure there are those in the strictest states who would appreciate the freedom too, but it is hard for me not to believe remote work is a bigger factor in overall numbers.
Bob Krantz
Dec 8 2021 at 10:26am
People seeking safety also move based on their perception of risk factors besides rules. My small town, like others in Colorado, saw a large in-migration, with people talking about escaping big city hordes and the safer opportunities to spend time outdoors. Based on informal license plate spotting, as many came from California as from Texas.
Jose Pablo
Dec 8 2021 at 6:22pm
Having laxer covid rules are positively correlated with lower taxes and, in general less intrusive regulations.
Covid rules are, in many cases, just “the straw (maybe a big one) that broke the camel’s back”.
I would say that this is part of what you are looking at in your survey.
Jody Lanham
Dec 31 2021 at 7:36am
People are going to complain about restrictions or lack of no matter where they are and if they do or do not move. Some people just want things the way they want them based on a mixture of their reality and the perceived reality if they get what they want. None of it in the long run will make any identifiable difference in how covid plays out. It’s a virus, we have always had and and always will have viruses that will effect us in some way. We have always lived with them, some worse than others; but we have never tried at the expense of others’ freedom and the total destruction of our society to control those viruses. We need to stop immediately doing that, drop the drama, stop trying to figure it out, test, fear and fret, and go back to our lives, if we haven’t totally destroyed them by now. We need to stop blaming others if we get sick, stop expecting others to keep us safe and stop trying to outrun covid, because we can’t. some of us will get infected no matter what we do or don’t do. some of will not get infected no matter what we do or don’t do, that is the reality. Live or hide, forever – the choice is ours.
Comments are closed.