Illinois’ alarming population problem

There’s no place like home, but for residents of Illinois, more and more are looking to find new homes elsewhere. According to United Van Lines’s 2015 data available on State Data Lab, Illinois ranked third nationwide for the highest percentage of outbound shipments. New York and New Jersey surpassed Illinois’ rate of 63.2 percent with rates of 64.6 and 66.6 percent, respectively. The national average rate for 2015 was 48.9 percent outbound shipments.

All of Illinois’ neighbors in the Midwest reported above-average outbound shipment rates, but Illinois reported the highest out of the region. Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont boasted the lowest rates of 31, 37.6, and 38 percent, respectively.

Illinois’ high rate of outbound shipments is unfortunate, but not surprising. In addition to ranking high for people leaving the state, Illinois also topped the list for distrust of state government, worst state to do business, and high taxpayer burden. Unfortunately, Illinois has done little over the past five years to reverse its issue of slowing population growth, as shown in their abysmal ranking in the United Van Lines study. Hopefully Illinois — and the rest of the Midwest — figure out how to reverse their declining population numbers once and for all.