The latest Census data shows where New Jerseyans moved in 2024, and the top destination isn’t Florida, it’s right across the Delaware.
You know at least one. A coworker who took the job in Dallas, a cousin who lives out in Bucks County (who also brings up her tax bill at every family party), maybe your parents, who sold the family house two winters ago and now text you alligator memes from Florida.
Well, now there’s actual data behind that. USAFacts went through U.S. Census Bureau numbers for 2024, and roughly 215,000 people moved from New Jersey to another state that year. About 150,000 came in from somewhere else in the country. Do the subtraction and New Jersey was down around 63,900 residents on domestic moves, which put it 47th out of 50.
Everyone assumes they all went to Florida primarily. They didn’t. Well, sort of.
Fast Facts
- Roughly two out of every 90 New Jerseyans moved to another state in 2024.
- New Jersey lost more people than it gained to 32 different states.
- Almost half of everyone who left, 44.9 percent, went to Pennsylvania, New York, or Florida.
- Those same three states sent New Jersey 63.1 percent of its newcomers.
5. Virginia
11,018 people left New Jersey for Virginia. Net loss: 7,690.
Northern Virginia mostly. Government contractors, defense jobs, tech, and a lot of military families who rotate in and out. Winters are a little easier. You’re also not in the Deep South, which matters to a certain kind of Jersey person who wants to leave but still wants a bagel within driving distance. Houses around D.C. aren’t cheap either, though compared to Bergen County they look reasonable.
4. Texas
11,078 moved to Texas, edging out Virginia by 60 people. Net loss: 8,148.
Jobs, mostly. Dallas and Houston have been pulling corporate offices out of the Northeast for years, Austin did the same with tech, and Texas has no state income tax. You get more house for the money too. Property taxes there aren’t low, though, which catches some people off guard after they’ve already signed. And the summers. Only 2,930 Texans moved here, so the traffic is pretty one-sided.
3. Florida
22,646 went to Florida. Net loss: 10,525.
We’ve heard all the jokes, so brass tacks: No state income tax, no shoveling, and grandparents who’ve been making the I-95 drive since the 1950s. Remote workers have joined them lately. Florida is the stereotype and it does show up big, but third. Two states that border us beat it. Also 12,121 people moved from Florida to New Jersey in the same year, and you never hear about them.
2. New York
36,002 moved to New York.
Mostly young, probably. Kids out of Rutgers or Montclair State getting their first job in Midtown, students, people in media or fashion or music who got tired of the PATH. Hoboken is close. Some people need closer.
Don’t count New York as a loss yet, though. Keep reading.
1. Pennsylvania
38,467 people moved across the Delaware. Net loss: 12,565, the biggest with any state.
It’s about houses. A family that can’t afford Monmouth or Middlesex anymore drives 40 minutes west and finds something bigger, with a yard, in Bucks or Lehigh or Northampton County, and the property tax bill is a fraction of what they were paying. A lot of them keep their jobs here. They take the Turnpike extension or the bridge into Trenton or Philly every morning, same as before, just from a different address.
Which is probably why it never feels like they left. They’re still at the Shore in July. They still complain about NJ Transit even though they haven’t ridden it since 2022.
Just Missing the List
North Carolina is sixth. 9,282 New Jerseyans moved there, net loss of 4,332, mostly to Charlotte and the Raleigh area, and at that pace it could push into the top five soon.
Some states went the other way. Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, and New Hampshire all sent New Jersey slightly more people than they got. Delaware came out almost exactly even, off by 57. Tennessee was off by seven. Seven people.
The New York Twist
So 36,002 people left New Jersey for New York. In the same year, 56,799 people left New York for New Jersey.
That’s a gain of 20,797 residents, and no state sends New Jersey more net people than New York does.
The likely pattern isn’t complicated. You move to the city at 23 because that’s where the job is. Ten years later you have a partner and a kid and you’ve seen what a two-bedroom in Park Slope costs, and suddenly Maplewood looks great. Or Montclair. Or Westfield, or a high-rise in Jersey City where you can still see the skyline from the kitchen.
Without New York in the numbers, New Jersey’s domestic loss would be closer to 84,700.
Where the Newcomers Land
Hudson County, by a lot. From 2020 to 2024, newcomers from other states averaged 3.3 percent of Hudson’s population every year, the highest in the state, which makes sense if most of them are crossing the Hudson to get here.
Cumberland County had the lowest share at around 0.8 percent. Statewide, newcomers from other states made up 1.6 percent of the population in 2024.
So Is Everyone Leaving?
New Jersey is losing people to other states. It has been for a while. Housing, property taxes, the general cost of being here, none of that is news to anyone who lives here.
The top two places people went, though, are next door. Almost half went to three states, and two of those are close enough that you could drive there and back for dinner. That’s less of an exodus and more of a shuffle around the same region, people swapping a Jersey address for one in Pennsylvania while New Yorkers move into the places they left.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.
