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Here’s why you should move to Massachusetts

News of the state’s population demise has been greatly exaggerated. Our health care, life sciences, education, technology, and financial sectors will remain big draws.

. Ally Rzesa/Globe staff; Adobe Stock

By Cameron Sperance, The Boston Globe

October 16, 2024

3 minutes to read

Who cares what Florida and Texas have to offer? Boston is still a city on a hill that provides endless opportunities — far beyond the copious number of Dunkin’s.

Though, those are nice, too.

After moving around the country and living abroad as a chef, Krystal-Rae Clarke moved to Florida to start FoodSaucy, a chef’s table experience business. But as she looked to grow her business, Clarke went against the post-pandemic, Boston-to-Sun Belt migration current and decided to plant roots here in Massachusetts.

“It was time for me to grow and start hiring people,” Clarke said. “I was out of Atlanta and West Palm Beach [Fla.], and I asked myself: ‘Do I want to live here? Do I want to grow a business here?’”

Clarke now lives in Newton, and her experience isn’t an anomaly amid all the headlines heralding a mass exodus from the Commonwealth.

Yes, Boston Indicators, the research arm of the Boston Foundation, highlighted in April how the shrinking population of Massachusetts in 2021 and 2022 was a result of domestic outmigration outpacing international in-migration for the first time in years.

But while the loss of longtime residents is never good, others say this isn’t necessarily the swan song for the Bay State. A report last month from the Massachusetts Budget & Policy Center downplayed the idea that there is an outmigration upheaval underway and noted that the state’s population grew ever-so-modestly in 2023 — by 0.25 percent, or 18,700 people.

Yes, that pales in comparison to the inflow in the Sun Belt states, which add hundreds of thousands of people each year. But it doesn’t exactly sound like population shrivel, either.

“One of the things that gets lost in the data, too, is often people are looking at net migration, but you actually saw an increase during the same time period of people moving to the state as well,” said Kerry Spitzer, a senior research manager at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Donahue Institute.

The MassBudget report said Massachusetts on average replaces 83 percent of its out-migrants with in-migrants. Further, 2 out of every 3 people moving from Massachusetts to Florida or New Hampshire are replaced by people moving from New Hampshire or Florida to Massachusetts. Massachusetts also had a higher median household income growth than all but seven states. Popular Sun Belt growth states like Florida and Texas were lower.

Family and job opportunities are among the leading reasons why people move to Massachusetts, according to the 2023 National Movers Study by United Van Lines. Others cite school safety and inclusivity as motivating factors.

“It ended up exceeding my expectations,” said Shannon Gibson, a Fort Worth-based social worker who lived in Greater Boston for six years with her husband and two children. “Schools across Massachusetts are inclusive and cater to all kinds of different needs.”

But housing costs here are a lot higher on average (the average home value in the state is $627,596, a 6.1 percent one-year jump, per Zillow) than those in Florida ($393,698) and Texas ($301,011). It’s a case of needing to see the full package of what Massachusetts can offer.

Gibson noted while the tax rates are more favorable in the Lone Star State, she at least saw benefit in what she was paying while living in Woburn.

“I could actually see where we did benefit from it with children’s programming and mental health programs,” she said. “It’s not like you’re paying your taxes and not seeing where it’s going.”

Another motivating factor is the region’s robust, diversified economy. Health care, the life sciences, and the education, financial, and technology sectors are among a variety of leading industries that are major job creators for the region. The fact that Boston continues to draw in companies from other states — Lego is shifting its Americas headquarters here from Connecticut next spring, and Hasbro may soon follow from Rhode Island — shows Massachusetts isn’t exactly unfriendly to businesses.

It’s not just big businesses getting wooed here, either. The city of Boston has a dedicated small-business task force, and a report from Lendio, a business loan firm, has Massachusetts as one of the 10 best states to start a small business, noting that the businesses here “have one of the highest five-year survival rates of 57 percent.”

“I’m just starting to hear people talk about small-business incentives here,” Clarke said. “It feels like the tables are turning when it comes to small businesses in Massachusetts.”

Yes, the cost of living is high. But it’s not called the Hub of the Universe for nothing, people.