The University of Kansas School of Business Center for Applied Economics recently released a study on county to county migration of taxpayers in the United States. According to the report, population mobility is a trademark characteristic of the United States economy. Fundamentally, people move places where they think their lives will improve. This continual reallocation of human talent has extensive implications for evolving regional economies.
The study shows the states of the Great Plains are depopulating, but counter to the rest of the nation, they are also urbanizing and regionalizing. There are only seven Kansas counties that experienced a net inflow of taxpayers over the 1995-2006 timeframe: Butler, Franklin, Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami, and Pottawatomi. Most of these counties are in the Kansas City Metro area.
The center’s researchers, led by Executive Director Art Hall, conducted this study to gain fundamental knowledge about why people move to where they move. The center strives to help advance the economic development of the state of Kansas and the Midwest region through analysis and education. To make the results of the study more accessible to Kansans, Hall has summarized the results from a Kansas perspective.
To view the executive summary of the report, A Kansas Perspective on the County-to-County Migration of U.S. Taxpayers, click here.
