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We don’t want to be Michigan.
Nothing against the Great Lakes state, which I’m sure is lovely this time of year, with the lilacs in bloom and the Detroit Tigers within sight of a wild card berth if you have a good imagination. But Michigan has a problem that Virginia ought to avoid.
Namely, Michigan is losing population.
The Census Bureau estimates that its population is down about 40,000 since the last official headcount. Furthermore, a recent report by the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics warns that the state’s population — now just over 10 million — could plummet by 700,000 by the year 2050.
There are two reasons for this. First, birth rates are declining, so every year deaths outnumber births. This isn’t unique to Michigan. We see this in 18 other states, as well. Virginia is not among those. From 2020 to 2023, Virginia has seen 42,274 more births than deaths, although that phenomenon is concentrated in Northern Virginia; most of the rest of the state is already like Michigan in that regard.
Second, more people move out of Michigan than into Michigan. This is where Virginia is already like Michigan. Since 2013, Virginia has consistently seen more people move out than move in. This is a trend that Gov. Glenn Youngkin has repeatedly warned about.
For now, Virginia’s numbers still work out to a slight population increase — a 1% increase since 2020 — but it’s not hard to imagine those numbers going the other way if deaths continue to outpace births (they will), and if net out-migration were to accelerate.
Youngkin (and other Republicans) blame Virginia’s out-migration on taxes. The state’s demographic trends are one of the reasons why he’s pushed (so far, unsuccessfully) for lower income tax rates. He points out that four of the five states that border Virginia all have lower tax rates; Maryland is the exception. Virginia is also losing population to all four of those states, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Democrats have been much more reticent on this subject, but when they do talk about out-migration, they cite something very different than higher income tax rates — they cite a lack of investment in transportation (especially in Northern Virginia) and education.
Who’s right?
We could debate this all day long, but the only objective answer is this: We simply don’t know.
Republicans have a persuasive circumstantial case to present: The top four states that Virginia loses population to — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas — all have lower taxes. Something clearly happens along the Virginia-North Carolina border. North of that, there’s net out-migration. South of that, there’s net in-migration.
Conservatives naturally like to chortle that people are “voting with their feet,” as Ronald Reagan used to say, by moving from blue states to red states. And, at the state level, there is much truth to that. However, when you look closer, that truth gets more complicated. From an economic point of view, what’s powering the growth in the Southeast are cities — and these are primarily blue cities in red states.
Do they benefit from what some might consider the best of both worlds — liberal social policies and conservative tax policies? Or is something else entirely driving migration?
Today, I make a modest suggestion: Let’s find out.
Every year, the General Assembly directs its watchdog agency, the much-respected Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, to study one thing or another. It’s studied gaming to advise on how the state should set up and regulate casinos; it’s studied cannabis and what might happen if we legalized it. Last year, JLARC produced 14 different reports: on everything from child care, to the GO Virginia economic development program, to the state’s psychiatric hospitals, to the Virginia Retirement System. JLARC currently has eight reports underway, from broadband, to data centers, to congestion on interstates 81 and 95, to the Virginia Commonwealth University health system.
As a journalist, I have always found the JLARC reports remarkably thorough. Yet I suspect some of the agencies whose practices have been studied might wish for a bit less thoroughness.
I’ve looked back through all the JLARC reports since what appears to be the first one in 1975. I can’t find any that deal with the state’s population trends and their implications. Perhaps it is time for the commission that oversees JLARC to authorize one.
I will be the first to acknowledge that determining why people leave Virginia is not an easy thing to quantify. We can’t realistically interview everyone as they cross the state line in a moving van. But we could realistically survey enough people to get a good scientific sample. I will also acknowledge that even the best survey might have a hard time getting at the real answers. Perhaps someone’s answer is simply “I moved to take a better job” — unaware that the factors driving the creation of that job involved a state with a lower corporate income tax rate than Virginia.
So, yes, it’s complicated.
Still, it would be nice to have some facts to guide us rather than just opinions, even if somebody’s opinion here might well be right.
We do know some things. We know that Virginia’s net out-migration began with those over 65. Maybe that was driven by retirees who simply didn’t want to deal with winter anymore and decided that the Southeast coast was a better place to be. Maybe that was driven by retirees who were looking at income tax rates. Maybe it was driven by both.
However, we know now that out-migration is taking place across all age cohorts — and that working-age adults constitute the biggest share of those. In fact, only about 4.9% of the state’s out-migration appears to be due to those age 65 and older. Why is Virginia losing working-age adults? It might be useful to know why, right?
We might also want to try to get ahead of the situation in which Michigan now finds itself. You can find headlines on news sites in Michigan referring to the state’s “population woes” or “population crisis.” And not just news sites writing clickbait headlines, either. Even the Detroit Regional Chamber has warned that “Michigan is in crisis” because of its population trends. Faced with a declining population, the administration of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has launched a $20 million ad campaign to encourage people to move to Michigan.
The Bridge, a news site in Michigan similar to Cardinal, writes: “The campaign comes as Michigan faces a slew of population issues including worker shortages across the state in many key industries. As young people leave for other states, the population left behind has been getting older. The challenges make it more difficult to retain or attract residents, stymie business growth and will ultimately lead to diminished tax revenue if trends aren’t reversed.”
Virginia’s not in that situation — yet — although some of its localities certainly are. Furthermore, we’re already seeing the effects of a changing demography, with school closings in Franklin County and Russell County and the prospect of school closings in Bedford County and Lynchburg (which have been averted for now).
We don’t want to be Michigan. So it might behoove us to ask some questions now, rather than find ourselves in a population crisis later.
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