Majority of California Residents Want to Leave: Poll

A new poll reveals that 53% of California residents are considering leaving the Golden State because of the high cost of living.

The “Trust Barometer” poll, by Edelman Intelligence, was conducted January 4-20 among 1,500 California residents, with a margin of error of 2.5%. A special oversample of 400 tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area was also conducted, with a margin of error of 4.8%.

The results are sobering. Nearly two-thirds, 62%, of respondents said they believed the best days of California were in the past.

In addition, more than two-thirds, 68%, of Californians, believe the tech industry has been under-regulated — up 6% from 2018. That proportion is slightly higher among tech employees, 69% of whom think their industry has been under-regulated. 58% of Californians said the tech industry should be more regulated, up 12% from last year.

Nearly three-fourths of residents, 72%, say “cost and availability of housing is a very serious issue for California” — rising to 76% in the Bay Area.

And 62% of residents say “homelessness is a very serious issue for California. The proportion in the Bay Area is the same.

SFGate.com notes: “It appears the housing and homelessness crises have led to a pessimistic outlook.”

It adds (original links):

The trend is backed up by much of SFGATE’s past reporting. We’ve spoken with people who’ve left California for the Pacific Northwest, Texas and Denver — all popular destinations for Bay Area ex-pats. Nearly everyone we talked to cites the high cost of living as the primary reason they left. Others were looking for a slower pace of life, lower taxes, less traffic and more time with family.

There have been other signs of the California exodus. In December, it was revealed that one of the most frequently Googled questions in California last year was “Should I move out?”

The Bay Area was also found to be leading the nation in outward migration, meaning more people are leaving the region than moving in. However, most people who moved out of the Bay Area didn’t go to far; the number one destination was Sacramento, followed by Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and San Diego.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.