New data from the U.S. Census Bureau documents the number of citizens who moved from one residence to another between 2016 and 2017.
Blacks in the United States are more likely to move than Whites. In the 2016-to-2017 period, about 5.4 million African Americans, nearly 13 percent of the entire Black population of the United States changed their residence. For non-Hispanic White Americans, 10 percent changed their residence during the period.
Most of these moves for African Americans were local. About two thirds of African Americans who moved went to different residences in the same county. More than 13 percent of all African Americans who moved went to a different state and 2.4 percent moved abroad.
When we factor in educational attainment, we discover some interesting differences between Blacks and Whites. For those who did not finish high school moving rates were similar; 8.8 percent of Whites and 9.3 percent of Blacks. A much larger gap in mobility was apparent for high school graduates. About 12 percent of Black adults who graduated from high school but had no college experience moved between 2016 and 2017. For Whites with only a high school education, 7.7 percent moved.
For college graduates, 9.4 percent of all African Americans changed residences between 2016 and 2017. For White college graduates the figure was slightly lower at 9.2 percent. But for those with a graduate or professional degree 14.5 percent of Blacks and 8.7 percent of Whites moved between 2015 and 2016.
