Why Americans Are Moving Now Has Less to Do With Jobs—and More to Do With Economic Resilience
As housing costs rise and labor markets cool, Americans are relocating based less on job maximization and more on where economic pressure is manageable. Migration data shows family and affordability now rival career opportunities as primary drivers of moves, a shift that aligns with new findings from the Milken Institute’s 2026 Best-Performing Cities report. The metros outperforming today are not the largest or fastest-growing, but those that combine steady employment, lower housing costs, and resilience to economic slowdown. Together, the data suggests U.S. mobility is no longer about chasing opportunity alone—it is about reducing exposure to risk in an increasingly constrained economy.
The data suggests Americans are still moving, but the forces shaping those decisions have become less linear and more constrained by structural conditions. In 2025, 29% of Americans who relocated said they did so to be closer to family, while 26% cited career opportunities, according to the United Van Lines 49th Annual National Movers Study. That inversion—family surpassing work as the leading motive—does not signal a retreat from economics so much as a recalibration of how households navigate them.
That recalibration is unfolding against a cooling national economy in which growth remains unevenly distributed across regions. In its Best-Performing Cities 2026 report, the Milken Institute found that while U.S. economic output continued to expand, employment growth slowed across most metros even as housing costs kept rising. The result, the institute wrote, is mounting pressure on households to balance job access with affordability and long-term stability—conditions that increasingly shape where people can realistically live.
Those pressures are reflected in which metropolitan areas are outperforming others. Milken’s rankings, which evaluate 411 U.S. metro areas across labor market conditions, wage growth, and economic opportunity, show a concentration of top performers in regions that combine steady job creation with comparatively lower housing costs. Six of the 10 best-performing large metro areas in 2026 were located in the South, a region that has continued to post positive employment growth while avoiding the housing cost escalation seen in many coastal markets.
At the top of the large-metro rankings was Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers, Arkansas, which has ranked among Milken’s leading performers for several consecutive years. The region’s economic profile reflects sustained job growth across construction, logistics, and professional services, alongside housing costs that remain below the national average. Milken’s analysis notes that such metros are not insulated from national slowdowns but have shown greater resilience by maintaining labor demand without pricing out new or existing residents.
Similar dynamics appear in smaller metros. According to the Milken Institute’s Best-Performing Cities 2026 report, St. George, Utah, which led Milken’s small-metro rankings, exemplifies how population growth, sector diversification, and relative affordability can reinforce one another. Once primarily a retirement destination, the city has seen rapid expansion in technology and construction employment, benefiting from in-migration while remaining accessible to remote and hybrid workers priced out of larger markets. Across Milken’s top 10 small metros, the Mountain West accounted for more than half, underscoring the region’s role in absorbing population shifts driven by cost and flexibility rather than wage maximization alone.
These economic patterns align closely with recent migration flows. According to United Van Lines data, Eugene–Springfield, Oregon, the top inbound metro area in 2025, attracted 85% of its movers from outside the region. The area combines a lower cost of living than major West Coast cities with access to health-care employment and proximity to larger regional markets. According to United Van Lines data, Oregon as a whole recorded 65% inbound moves last year, continuing a trend that began during the pandemic and has persisted despite rising interest rates and slowing job growth.
Outbound trends tell a complementary story. New Jersey ranked first for outbound moves for the eighth consecutive year, with 62% of movers leaving the state in 2025. High housing costs and slower employment growth relative to other regions have continued to weigh on household decisions, particularly as wage gains have failed to offset cost increases. California and New York remain among the top outbound states as well, reflecting similar affordability constraints even as both states retain large, diverse economies.
Importantly, Milken’s findings suggest these movements are not simply about chasing growth but about managing exposure to risk. With labor markets cooling nationally, metros that pair moderate growth with lower fixed costs offer households greater margin for error. “The cooling labor market conditions and rising costs across the U.S. highlight the critical importance of affordability for metropolitan residents,” Milken Institute researchers wrote, noting that this year’s rankings emphasize how economic prosperity is reinforced—or undermined—by housing and cost-of-living dynamics.
That framework helps explain why places such as West Virginia, which saw 62% inbound moves last year, attracted movers primarily for retirement and proximity to family rather than employment alone. In a slower-growth environment, the ability to reduce expenses and rely on non-wage sources of stability has become a rational economic strategy rather than a lifestyle preference.
Taken together, the migration data and economic rankings point to a structural shift. Americans are not abandoning opportunity so much as redefining it under tighter constraints. As housing costs rise faster than wages and labor markets lose momentum, mobility increasingly reflects where households can sustain themselves, not simply where jobs are most abundant. In that context, today’s moves are less about maximizing income and more about preserving optionality—choosing places that allow families to absorb economic volatility without sacrificing proximity, affordability, or long-term viability.