Mapping Who’s Coming To–And Leaving–New Hampshire

Jon Bruner/Forbes

Here's an example of the map created for Forbes. You can click on each county in New Hampshire and see its migration patterns

As you’re probably well aware by now, StateImpact really, really likes maps, charts, and other cool ways of visualizing the numbers soup we lovingly refer to as “raw data.”  Oftentimes, we like to generate our own stuff.  But every now and then, someone creates an interactive data tool so cool, we just have to share it–and offer our own little bit of analysis.

It just so happens that a reporter at Forbes has been looking into the migration habits of Americans.  As we noted during last week’s liveblog of the New England Economic Forecast conference, migration is becoming a bigger and bigger deal in the region.  You can essentially boil the issue down this way:

• The populations of the six New England states skew old.
• There aren’t a lot of young people here, anyway.
• The young people who are here aren’t having a lot of babies.
• And there aren’t a lot of young people moving here from elsewhere, either.

As a number of presenters explained at last Friday’s conference, this situation has some serious implications for replenishing the region’s labor pool in the long-term–and, subsequently, the economy.

Now, we have this lovely map courtesy of Forbes.  Using IRS data, reporter Jon Bruner traced the migration patterns for every county in the United States.  He also looked at the per capita income of the people who come and go from these counties.  If you haven’t yet, we highly recommend you visit the map here.

Meanwhile, if you don’t have the time (or inclination) to click through New Hampshire’s various counties to figure out if they’re seeing gains or losses, and what their relative income levels are, go ahead and come back tomorrow.  We’ll have some analysis.