Wondering Which States Americans Hate to Live In? Ask U-Haul

Where do Americans drive other than to work, shopping, and perhaps to school?  Americans move, and move quite often.  They relocate to neighboring cities and distant states.  By and large, the U.S. looks like a big monolithic country.  In fact, the U.S. is a federal republic of independent states, each with many laws, many customs, and a unique political climate.

Does the changing political climate affect population migration between states?  Of course, it does, but how?  What if we were to express the movement of intra-American migration, not in words, but in the language of numbers?  A convenient measure of internal migration could be the U-Haul Index.

U-Haul is a truck rental company used by many Americans who relocate.  The rented trucks must be driven by U-Haul customers themselves, and payment is charged one way only.  That is, after unloading, it is not necessary to return the vehicle to the starting point.  If necessary, the U-Haul company will take care of it.  Then the prices for transportation from point A to point B will be the same as from point B to point A, but only if the average number of customers is the same at both points A and B.

If the number of orders for trucks at both destinations is the same, then U-Haul has no problems.

If the number of orders is not the same, then U-Haul must hire drivers to relocate the empty trucks, and then pay to transport these drivers back.  In this case, the prices for traffic will not be symmetrical – renting trucks to a popular point A from an unpopular point B will entail higher costs.

Here are some examples (all data is taken from the U-Haul website; prices are for March 1, 2018, for a favorite 20-foot van.)

Renting a truck from New York to Orlando costs $2,214 and back $1,557 (the difference is $657, a 42% surcharge.)

Renting a truck from New York to Dallas costs $2,442 and back $1,962 (the difference is $480, a 24% surcharge.)

Renting a truck from San Francisco to Orlando costs $3,308 and back $1,988 (the difference is $1,510, an 84% surcharge.)

Renting a truck from San Francisco to Dallas costs $3,206 and back $1,128 (the difference is $2,078, a 184% surcharge.)

For comparison, renting the same truck from New York to San Francisco costs $3,409, and back $3,058 (the difference is $351, a surcharge of 11%).

What causes people to leave San Francisco and New York and to make a move to Dallas and Orlando?

San Francisco is in the state of California, and New York City in the state of New York.  Both states for decades have been bastions of left-wing politicians – former Democrats, and now socialists and communists.

Dallas is in Texas, and Orlando is in Florida.  Both states for decades have been bastions of right-wing politicians – Republicans and conservatives.

Perhaps the question should be posed differently: what forces people to leave those states where the government is pursuing a left socialist policy and move to states where the government is pursuing a pragmatic right-wing policy?

The example above shows that in the move from one corner of the American socialist paradise, San Francisco, to another, New York, a small difference in prices exists.  But, most likely, this asymmetry is because the climate in San Francisco is more pleasant than in New York.

Regardless of the political views of those Americans who leave Democrat states for Republican states, Democrat states will be the losers.  After all, most American migrants simply repeat the path of many talented people who left the socialist paradise known as the Soviet Union.

Democrats are losing their electorate and therefore are forced to pursue a policy of “open borders.”  Moreover, the inclusion of socialism into the capitalist economy leads to severe imbalances that Democrats prefer to compensate by the injection of illegal aliens into the U.S. economy.  Democrats see their last hope in the legalization of illegal aliens.

The socialists pursue a single goal: to legalize the participation of illegal aliens in elections.  The mayor of New York, communist Bill de Blasio, openly supports the idea that 500,000 illegal aliens residing in New York City should receive the right to vote at least in local elections.  The governor of California, socialist Jerry Brown, has already implemented that law.  Starting April 1, 2018, all residents of California, including illegal aliens, will automatically be added to voting rolls while renewing their driver’s licenses.

The U-Haul Index shows that Americans categorically do not like such policies.  Americans take part in federal elections every two years, but in between elections, they vote, too – with their feet.  More precisely, with trucks.

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Gary Gindler