Discussion Paper

Urban Marylanders Are Migrating to More Affordable and Smaller Metro Areas

Abstract: With its unemployment rate reaching 1.9 percent in December 2023, Maryland has the tightest labor market in the country, which poses an ongoing hiring challenge for the state's employers. A key contributor to the tightness is the state's slow post-pandemic labor force recovery, especially in the state's inner-ring suburbs of the District of Columbia. While some of the state's former workers and job seekers have dropped out of the labor force but have remained residents, others have left the state altogether, according to recent statistics that placed Maryland in the top 5 states by net out-migration. In this post, we examine recent domestic migration trends in Maryland compared to peer states in the Fifth District. In the past few years, many former Marylanders have gone to neighboring states or farther South to Florida, Texas, or the Carolinas. Most of the state's out-migration has originated from the Washington-Baltimore corridor, where former residents have left for smaller and lower cost-of-living metro areas.

Keywords: migration; Housing affordability; Maryland; 5th district;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Part of Series: Regional Matters

Publication Date: 2024-03-07