What Brain Drain? More People Coming to SD Than Leaving

KELO reports some stats this morning that defy my expectations. In its 2007 stats, United Van Lines reports that it handled 471 moves into South Dakota and 349 moves out of the state. That struck me as odd, since that Sioux Falls paper reported last October on South Dakota brain drain, the negative migration rate of 22- to 39-year-olds with 2-year or better degrees (thank you, Google cache).

But the year-end US Census report that showed South Dakotans popping out babies at a prodigious rate also backs up the UVL migration numbers. From 2000 to 2007, folks moving to South Dakota outnumbered the folks moving out by by 6,977, about a thousand more new neighbors a year.

Now note that United Van Lines numbers may not be the most representative of the complete demographic picture in South Dakota. Those 820 moves involving South Dakota are less than 0.4% of the 213,000 moves United Van Lines handled last year, suggesting United Van Lines doesn't have a very big presence in our state. Indeed, a check of United Van Lines' own website shows just one agent in the whole state (AAction Movers, a Bismarck company with a branch in Rapid City). The higher inbounds than outbounds for this one company could just be an artifact of their low presence in our state.

United Van Lines also caters to folks with the money to hire someone to do the moving for them. A lot of South Dakotans are too cheap or too stubborn (I'm both) to let someone else move their stuff, so we're more likely to use U-Haul or our own old van. College kids aren't going to call UVL to move. And U-Haul has numbers that sometimes point the opposite direction of UVL's (see this example from Florida, where UVL showed more moves out of Florida than, while U-Haul showed more in-moves than out) UVL's numbers reflect what that October Argus report noted, that our positive migration rate comes more from older movers (the 40-64 crowd).

You could read these trends as all positive. The spendy van lines bring us wealthy, established workers, while poor folks throw everything in the truck à la Grapes of Wrath and head for the peach fields. Bob Ellis would certainly approve, since he thinks the poor are too stupid and unworthy to participate in civic life anyway (you're still missing the point, Bob). Governor Rounds would certainly approve, since those rich in-migrants will buy more stuff and save his fiscal hide with their sales tax dollars than those darn youngsters. "Move away, young people!" the plutocrats might say. "Come back when you have some money!"

But I digress... a little. Brain drain is still a problem. Too many young people feel compelled by our economic and cultural climate to seek their fortunes and exercise their creativity elsewhere. Some come back when they get older and want to settle down for good. But it sure would be nice if we could do more to make our young entrepreneurs and artists feel welcome from the start and keep them here to build their fortunes and dreams from the ground up. South Dakota would be richer for it.