Fact Check Team: From marriage trends to remote jobs, what’s behind the US moving slump?

WASHINGTON (TND) — Americans are staying put now more than ever, with the local moving rate hitting a historic low at just 8.7% in 2022, according to a study by The Brookings Institution.

In the 1960s, around 20% of Americans moved each year, so why the big drop?

According to Brookings, there are several factors to blame. One is the amount of time young adults are spending still living with their parents.According to a Harris Poll for Bloomberg survey, about 45% of people ages 18 to 29 are living at home.

Delaying marriage and a family is also becoming more common. In 2023, the average age of marriage in the United States was around 30 years old for men and 28 years old for women, but in 1960, it was 22 years old for men and 20 years old for women.

The pandemic also impacted the moving rate decrease, with remote jobs. Since the pandemic, remote jobs have become increasingly more common, so people don’t have to move to find a new position. In April 2022, 20% of job postings offered remote work, more than double offered in Jan. 2021.

Rental prices and the state of the housing market also play a role.According to NerdWallet, average rent prices have skyrocketed in recent years. They’re now 33.4% higher than before the pandemic, but rental growth, which measures the increase or decrease in rental prices over a specific time, seems to have slowed from the major spikes of 2022.

Among cities in the U.S., the highest yearly average rental increase was a 7.9% spike in Hartford, Connecticut. Following that was Cleveland, Ohio with a 7.3% spike, and Providence, Rhode Island with a 6.7% annual increase.

It’s important to note that the long-distance moving rate is up. A Senior Demographer at Brookings told the New York Times, that Americans who are moving to new cities and states, meaning long-distance moves, are disproportionately college-educated. As for less-educated workers, they don’t necessarily benefit as much from moving to a city for a job as they once did to make more money and find a better life.