Americans Don't Move Anymore
The share of Americans who changed residence in the past year, from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, annual since 1948. One in five Americans moved every year in the early postwar decades; the rate has declined through every economic regime since and reached its record low in the latest survey. The fall tracks an aging population, dual-career households, occupational licensing, and — most recently — homeowners locked into low mortgage rates, and it pairs with the falling business dynamism documented elsewhere on this dashboard.
What does it show?
One in five Americans moved every year in the early 1950s. The rate has fallen through every decade since — to 8% in the latest survey, the lowest on record. An economy premised on mobility has become one where almost nobody moves.
Methodology
Movers as a share of the population aged one and over, from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey historical mobility table A-1, annual since 1948 with a gap in the 1970s-80s when the question was asked intermittently; the axis skips missing years. Where the table shows a survey year under two population controls, the newer controls are used. Declining mobility tracks aging, dual-career households, licensing, and housing lock-in.