Census: Americans Stayed Put in 2009

Fewer Americans moved in 2009 than any other year this decade, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this month.

Population also grew less this year than any other year since the turn of the 21st Century. It reached 307 million on July 1, up less than 1 percent from a year earlier, the bureau says. About 850,000 people immigrated from other countries, down 15 percent compared to 2006.

The losers in this trend included Florida, which lost 31,000 people to other states, a first for the Sunshine State, which used to be No. 1 in attracting new residents. "The middle of the decade's huge surge to the Sun Belt stopped on a dime," says demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.

Demographers say real estate is one of the big reasons people are staying put. "People are trapped," says Yi Zhao, senior forecasting coordinator for the Census Bureau in the State of Washington. "They can't sell their house or they have a hard time getting credit for a new one."


Source: USA Today