California will see staggering population decline by 2050, new report reveals

More and more Californians are rushing out of the Golden State.

A new analysis from WalletHub estimates that California will lose 760,000 residents between 2025 and 2050, the third-largest number of any state.

The mass exodus comes as no surprise, as major corporations, movie stars, and even hopeful young adults have grown tired of the state’s ballooning cost of living and unfriendly business environment.

While California struggles to retain residents, Texas is booming. The Lone Star state is expected to get a lot less lonely by the mid-21st century. The study estimates Texas will gain a staggering 10.4 million new residents by 2050, by far the most of any state.

A separate study found that Texas is a popular destination for young people leaving California. Of the 58,109 Gen Z adults that left California in 2014, 19,287 of them wound up in Texas.

In 2023, more than 100,000 Californian residents left the state for Texas, more than double the rate of Texans moving to California. 1 of 5 of those movers came from Los Angeles.

With no state income tax and much more affordable housing, Texas is especially attractive to people looking to relocate.

“I think the migration will continue steadily. The bubble has burst when it comes to what life can look like outside of California,” Soomin Kim, a realtor in Austin, Texas, and former California resident, told StorageCafe.

“With homeownership increasingly out of reach for most young families, many will look to how their peers are living in other states — especially through social media — and start to experience real FOMO. It might not always be Texas, but it will be places like Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana, and other states offering more affordability and space. The trend will continue, just not at the breakneck pace of 2020–2021.”

Only two other states are expected to lose more residents than California. Illinois is expected to lose a whopping 1.4 million residents in the next 25 years, while New York will lose 989,000.

Florida will see the second-largest increase in residents, with an additional 7 million people expected to live in the state by 2050.

North Carolina is expected to grow by 2 million, while Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Washington are all expected to grow by at least 1 million residents.

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