BOSTON — One in four young people in Greater Boston are planning to leave within the next five years. When they go, they're not moving to Brooklyn or Portland. They're heading to Florida, Texas, the Carolinas — states where rent doesn't require a roommate and the government doesn't take a victory lap every time it raises your taxes.

A new survey from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, conducted by Washington-based polling firm HIT Strategies, found that 26% of residents aged 20 to 30 across Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth, and Suffolk counties say they're likely to leave within five years. Among those planning to leave Massachusetts entirely, almost half are looking at the southeast and southwest — the Sun Belt states that have been quietly absorbing blue-state refugees for years.

The Chamber called the findings "distressing." That's generous. The same survey in 2023 found the same number — a quarter of young people planning to leave — which means three years of hand-wringing has produced exactly zero improvement.

What's pushing them out

The respondents didn't need to think hard about this one. Cost of rent. Ability to buy a home. Safety. Whether the jobs here pay enough to justify living here.

Boston's median rent for a one-bedroom is closing in on $3,000. The median home price across Greater Boston is north of $800,000. A 26-year-old making $65,000 — a solid salary by most standards — is handing over half of every paycheck for a studio apartment and will never own property in this city unless someone dies and leaves them one.

The same person in Raleigh or Tampa has twice the purchasing power. No state income tax in Florida. No Green Line delays in either.

Day-to-day life satisfaction among the survey group dropped from 89% in 2023 to 79% this year. Ten points in three years. The people who are still here are less happy about it than they were — and a quarter of them are already looking at Zillow in other states.

Beacon Hill's answer: nothing

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Massachusetts Democrats hold a veto-proof supermajority in both chambers. They control the governor's office. They run every major city in the state. If something's broken, there's nobody else to blame — a luxury they've had for decades and used mostly to add programs, not fix problems.

A coalition of business groups backed a ballot proposal to cut the state income tax from 5% to 4% over three years. A modest change. A signal to the people packing boxes that somebody heard them. Top State House Democrats opposed it.

The argument: cutting taxes would slash revenue. The rebuttal, from the people U-Hauling their way to Charlotte: they're already taking their revenue with them.

Where they're going

The survey broke down the destinations:

Southeast and Southwest: Nearly half of those leaving the state — Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, Arizona
Northeast (outside New England): 15%
Other New England states: 11% — New Hampshire, mostly, which has no income tax and sits a 45-minute drive from downtown Boston
Other regions: 17%

About half of those planning to leave Greater Boston say they'll stay somewhere in Massachusetts — just not here. Outside the metro, where housing costs less and life moves slower. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the city.

The numbers behind the numbers

The survey captures a feeling. The Census data captures the math — and the math is worse.

Massachusetts lost 33,340 domestic residents in 2025 alone, according to Census data analyzed by Pioneer Institute. Since 2020, 182,000 Americans have left the state — what Pioneer described as "losing one-and-a-half Cambridges." The heaviest losses are in the 25-to-44 bracket. The exact demographic this survey is measuring.

And yet, Massachusetts didn't shrink. Its population grew by 15,524. The reason: 40,240 international migrants arrived in 2025, accounting for virtually all of the state's population growth. Without immigration, Massachusetts would be losing people — full stop.

The state's foreign-born population has grown from 1.1 million to 1.34 million over the past decade, now making up nearly 19% of the population. The migrant shelter system, which peaked at 7,600 families, is projected to cost taxpayers over $1 billion this fiscal year. The White House just highlighted that educating illegal immigrant students alone costs Massachusetts $1.6 billion annually.

So the tax base is leaving for red states. The population is being sustained by immigration. And the costs of that immigration — in shelters, in schools, in services — are landing on the people who haven't left yet.

The Chamber of Commerce has been waving this flag for years. Nobody on Beacon Hill picked it up. And now the same survey is back with the same results, the same destinations, and worse satisfaction scores than last time.

At some point, the question stops being "why are young people leaving?" and starts being "why would they stay?"

Young people are POURING OUT of Boston for red states — while over 40,000 immigrants moved into Massachusetts last year

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