INTRO: Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked about
how California has the highest poverty levels in the country and how New York is the fastest
shrinking state in the country.
Considering the dire state of these two regions, it’s not surprising that a lot of people
are looking for a new home.
On TV, we always hear about these people moving to Texas and Florida, but the fastest growing
state in the US in terms of percentage is actually Idaho.
Between July of 2020 and July of 2021, Idaho’s population grew by 2.9%.
This is nearly three times higher than the growth rate of Texas or Florida.
This isn’t some new phenomenon either.
Idaho has consistently topped the growth charts for the past 10 years.
Since 2011 Idaho’s population has grown by over 20% while even Texas’ population
has only grown by 15%.
Now of course, Texas has far greater nominal growth, but it’s crazy to think that a state
like Idaho, which is generally overlooked, is so popular amongst migrants.
So, why are so many people moving to Idaho?
COST OF LIVING: Starting with the most obvious reason, we
have finance.
Idaho is simply a far more affordable place to live than much of the country.
Now, Idaho isn’t dirt cheap like Arkansas or Oklahoma, but they’re definitely on the
reasonable side of things.
For example, let’s take a look at housing.
Housing prices have actually shot up quite bit over the past 2 years in Idaho even more
so than the rest of the country.
Before the pandemic started, the average house cost $300,000, but now the average house costs
$475,000.
This means that Idaho housing has shot up 58% over the past 2 years.
But if you scroll back to lets say 2016, the average house cost $211,000 and in 2013, the
average house cost $154,000.
So, as you can see, Idaho has historically had cheap housing costs.
And even now, the average house in Idaho is only slightly more expensive than the national
average of $440,000.
Something else to consider is that the majority of migrants to Idaho come directly from California.
In fact, Californians have made up 46% of the net migration to Idaho over the past 5
years.
And these guys are not only used to seeing far more expensive housing prices, but many
of them have also earned California inflated salaries for several years if not over a decade.
This is especially true for tech workers.
For someone who’s worked at FAANG as a software engineer throughout their 20s, buying a house
in Idaho even with cash seems pretty realistic.
It’s not just housing that’s affordable either.
Every facet of life in Idaho is cheaper than most of it’s western neighbors.
In fact, Idaho is the 19th most affordable place to live in the US.
For perspective, Washington comes in at 38, Oregon comes in at 47, California comes in
at 49.
Considering this, it’s no wonder that Idaho is a top choice for people living in these
states.
It’s not all perfect though, Idaho does have some hefty taxes.
In fact, Idaho has one of the highest state income taxes in the nation coming in at number
6.
To make things worse, you don’t even have to make that much to fall into the highest
tax bracket.
As long as you make over $7,940 per year, you have to pay 6.5%.
So, this is basically everybody who has a job.
Even in California, you have to make over $35,000 per year to pay such a tax rate.
Idaho also has substantial sales tax as well coming in at 6%.
For perspective, California’s sales tax rate is 7.25%.
On the brightside though, property taxes are relatively low in Idaho.
The average resident pays an effective tax rate of 0.69% which works out to roughly $1,500
per year.
This is one of the places that Idaho shines above even Texas.
Texas is notorious for having high property taxes to make up for a lack of income tax.
The average Texan pays an effective property tax of 1.8% which works out to $3,900 per
year.
Also, something else to note is that states generally have caps as to how much property
values can increase in a given year.
For example, the cap in Texas is 10%.
This means that even if you’re property skyrockets in value by 40%, you’d only be
taxed 10% more the following year.
So, most of these tax assessments haven’t caught up to current home prices.
Once they do, Idaho will likely just become even more appealing.
So, while Idaho has it’s ups and downs financially, in the big picture, Idaho is far cheaper than
most of the western states that people are immigrating from.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES: Aside from offering an affordable life, Idaho
also offers quite a few career opportunities.
You see, it’s not just people that have moved from western states to Idaho, but also
companies.
Of course, they also benefit from all the cost savings just like everyone else, but
there’s more to it than just that.
Idaho can sometimes be a more desirable expansion choice than Texas due to it’s proximity.
Here’s the thing, flights between San Francisco and Boise aren’t even two hours long.
Meanwhile, flights between Austin and San Francisco take nearly 4 hours.
Idaho’s proximity to California becomes an even larger advantage if your other options
are New York or Florida.
It takes over 6 hours to travel from either of these places to San Francisco.
Considering this, as a business, if you need employees to travel between your offices on
a regular basis, it makes a lot of sense to choose Idaho and that’s exactly what many
tech companies have done.
Something else to note is that Idaho’s proximity makes it a prime destination for remote workers.
Even before the pandemic, Idaho was one of the leaders in terms of remote work.
In fact, Idaho ranked 6th in the nation with 5.9% of their workforce working remotely.
During the pandemic, this number obviously went to the moon reaching heights of nearly
50%.
Since then, companies have been shifting back to in person, but many employees are choosing
to stay remote permanently.
Sometimes this means shifting to another company that allows for remote work or even negotiating
a lower salary.
A Tesla employee named Solomon for example accepted a 20% pay cut to stay in Idaho.
Stories like these have actually become so common that companies have started developing
streamlined policies for pay cuts and remote work.
Google for instance is cutting pay by 5 to 25% based on where a remote employee moved
to.
It’s not just tech workers that are having a blast in Idaho either.
Idaho offers plenty of blue collar jobs as well.
A great example is Idaho’s lumber industry.
Idaho has the 8th highest lumber production in the nation.
And given how much lumber prices have gone up over the past two years, this has been
quite lucrative.
A similar case could be made for Idaho’s food processing, chemicals, paper, and mining
industries as well.
Idaho ranks 7th when it comes to agricultural goods and food product exports per capita.
Similarly, 45% of all silver mined in the US comes from Idaho and Idaho is the second
largest producer of Phosphate.
And this isn’t just cherry picked evidence either.
There are stats that show that Boise not only has a strong labor market, but the strongest
in the entire nation.
Take job posting growth for example.
Between February of 2020 and Janaury of 2022, Boise saw the highest growth in job postings
in the nation coming in at an impressive 94.8%.
In other words, job opportunities literally doubled in the past two years in Boise.
So, there’s no question that Boise is one of the best places to start a long term career
right now.
CHERRY ON TOP: The two factors that we’ve discussed so
far alone are likely enough to convince most people to at least consider Idaho.
But, there are many more factors that actually push them to make the decision.
For example, they might be convinced by Idaho’s beautiful outdoors.
While Idaho isn’t warm year round like California, many prefer Idaho because it actually has
4 distinguishable seasons.
You can experience a full winter, spring, summer, and fall every year.
Not to mention, there’s plenty of activities to do outside thanks to Idaho’s largely
preserved nature.
Idaho has over 2000 named lakes and 4.7 million acres of designated wilderness.
They also have plenty of mountains which make the state perfect for hiking, mountain biking,
skiing, snowboarding, fishing, and so much more.
You also don’t have to worry about natural disasters ruining the landscape either.
Idaho is safe from earthquakes, wildfires, floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, etc.
Aside from the great outdoors, Idaho also benefits from the perks of suburban life such
as safety and schooling.
Starting with safety, Idaho has relatively low crime.
On average, there are 227.1 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 people in the state.
The national average is 380.6 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
Similarly, the states robbery average comes in 11.4 incidents per 100,000 people which
is the second lowest in the country.
These promising statistics carry over to property crimes as well which come in at 1,461.4 per
100,000.
The national overage is nearly 2,200 per 100,000 people.
Considering all this, I don’t think you’d be surprised to hear that Idaho ranks as the
3rd safest state in the country.
In terms of schooling, Idaho’s public school system is nothing to brag about, but it is
respectable.
It comes in at right about average in the country at rank 29.
Something to note, however, is that Idaho ranks better than Texas and Oregon.
Also, the only reason California ranks better than Idaho is due to their higher education.
If we look at K-12 education, Idaho comes in at rank 23 while California comes in at
rank 40.
So, if these are your other options, Idaho is actually relatively good.
Moving on from education, Idaho is great for proximity to the west coast.
This is not only an advantage for tech companies located in California but also an advantage
for people with family on the west coast.
A lot of times, the number one reason that people don’t want to leave a state like
California is because they have a lot friends and family there.
But, given Idaho’s close proximity to California, it’s not that expensive or difficult to
visit on a regular basis.
This is one of the main reasons that Las Vegas is so popular amongst Californians as well.
Las Vegas doesn't quite have the same career opportunities as Boise though, so for many,
Idaho is the best compromise.
THE CASE OF IDAHO: At the end of the day, over the past few years,
people have been facing economic pressures from all directions.
We have high inflation, a supply shortage, skyrocketing home prices, rising interest
rates, and we’re officially in a recession.
With all that being said, people have been desperate to find a place with a more reasonable
cost of living without having to give up too much.
For many higher earners like managers and high level software engineers, the solution
has been moving to Texas and Florida.
But, for many everyday people, they can feel these states becoming too expensive as well.
In Austin, for example, median home prices are nearly $700,000.
So, many have chosen to move to the next best thing which seems to be Idaho.
Dozens of secondary tech companies have moved or expanded to Boise which has made career
opportunities abundant.
Combine this with a low cost of living, diverse weather, great outdoors, respectable schooling,
low crime, and close proximity to the west coast, and it’s no wonder why Idaho has
become so desirable.
The sad part though is that this mass migration has carried over many of the west coast’s
problems over to Idaho.
For example, Boise suffers from the worst rush hour traffic in the entire country.
Similarly, home prices are almost crossing $500,000.
So, it’s not clear how much longer Boise will remain a top choice for new migrants.
But, for the people who moved in over the past 5 years, and especially those that moved
in right before the pandemic, it looks like they chose the perfect time to make the move,
but only time will tell.
Would you guys move to Idaho?
Comment that down below.
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