Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers
6/2/202624 min
For the first time since the 1930s, more people are moving out of the U.S. than moving in. It's a trend driven largely by the Trump Administration’s deportation agenda, but WSJ’s Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson also report that U.S. citizens are moving away in numbers not previously seen. The high costs of healthcare and housing, coupled with the ability to work remotely, are contributing to an exodus of young families and middle-class workers. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: Americans Are Now a Target in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A $100,000 Work Visa Could Rock the Tech Industry Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJessica Mendoza· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Our colleagues Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson both live in Europe, and they report a lot of stories together, usually about things like high-stakes hostage swaps or war in the Middle East. Here's Joe.
Joe Parkinson· Guest0:18
Our job is to travel around, normally finding the big stories that are happening across the world that Americans are interested in. Sometimes the, the most appealing stories you almost miss because they're hiding in plain sight.
Jessica Mendoza· Host0:31
[upbeat music] In their day-to-day lives, Joe and Drew noticed something. They were meeting a lot of Americans, and not just tourists. Here's Drew.
Drew Hinshaw· Guest0:43
We met people who are buying and selling real estate in Texas out of Barcelona. We met someone who runs a trailer park in Florida out of Madrid, people running investment firms out of Berlin.
Jessica Mendoza· Host0:56
So they started wondering, was this just a coincidence, or were more Americans uprooting their lives to move abroad? Joe and Drew started reporting. They reached out to the governments of more than 40 countries from Albania to Vietnam, and ultimately they found that the answer was yes.
Drew Hinshaw· Guest1:16
America's always been a country of immigration, a land that people move to, but last year for the first time since the 1930s, more people left than moved in. And there's this really interesting undercurrent, which is that the number of Americans