Illinois And Chicago Now Lead The Nation In People Moving Away

The annual migration report from Allied Van Lines and Zillow found that Illinois reported the largest outmigration of residents of any state during 2021, which would make last year the 8th consecutive year of population decline in Illinois.

As for Chicago, more people moved out of the Windy City than any other metropolitan area in the country.

So, there's two #1 rankings that no states ever want to lay claim to.

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Census Numbers Are Showing How Serious The Exodus From Illinois Really Is

The most attention getting statistic is the number of people who've moved away from Illinois compared to the numbers of people saying goodbye to nearby Midwestern states.

Illinois’ population declined by 113,776 from July 1st, 2020, through July 1st, 2021. No other Midwestern or neighboring state saw a population decline of more than 17,000.

IllinoisPolicy.org:

The major reasons Illinoisans have chosen to leave the state are for better housing and employment opportunities, both of which have been made worse by poor public policy in Illinois.
Nearly half of Illinoisans have thought about moving away, citing high taxes as their No. 1 reason. Population decline also contributes to the lower economic prospects of the state, as working-age families leave and fewer residents are left to shoulder increasing tax burdens.

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Let's Take A Quick Look At Where Former Illinoisans Are Moving, And Specifically Where Rockford Residents Are Going, Too

The 2021 Allied/Zillow Magnet States Report is a user-friendly map that let's you see not only where people are moving to from Illinois and Rockford, but also where people who move here are coming from.

Allied has Illinois listed as a 32% inbound-68% outbound ranking for Illinois, which means that of all the Illinois-related moves Allied is hired to do, 32% are for people coming here, while 68% are for those getting out.

As for Rockford, the main places that people are coming to our city from are Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Washington DC, and Dallas.

The places Rockfordians are going are Phoenix-Mesa, Tampa-St Pete-Clearwater, Nashville, Jacksonville, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Check the full Allied/Zillow report by clicking here.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.