In 23, Wisconsin gains big from ILL, a bit from the Upper Midwest, and more Sconnies headed South

I noticed that the US Census Bureau recently released its state-to-state migration report for 2023, and I figured I'd take a look at who was coming and going from our state last year.

Not surprisingly, Wisconsin has the largest number of movers (both coming and going) with two states that border us - Minnesota and Illinois. Wisconsin had nearly 27,000 Illinois residents move to our state and slightly more than 14,000 Sconnies headed south to ILL - a net gain of just over 12,800. Our "trade" of residents with Minnesota was more balanced, a little over 17,000 coming east from Minn to Wis last year, and just over 15,400 coming west over the Saint Croix.

But the third-largest state that Wisconsinites moved to and got people from wasn't nearby at all - it was Florida. And the other highest-mover states to/from Wisconsin are a combination of nearby places in the Upper Midwest, several other warm-weather states in the South and West, and we are getting quite a few people from California.

Expanding out into all 50 states, Wisconsin had a sizable gain of nearly 115,000 people from the rest of the country in 2023, and only had just over 100,000 move out. That's a nice reversal from the first half of the 2010s, when we were often losing out on net migration.

It's a good overall trend, and one that can reduce the limitations of growth that we seemed to be bumping up against a couple of years ago. And gaining from all 4 states that border us (including the lower-population state of Iowa) is a good indicator that we likely doing something right.