Families Flee California Over Endless Taxes, Housing Costs And Traffic

If there weren’t enough reasons NOT to live in California.

According to this Mercury News report families are fleeing the state at an alarming rate as taxes, housing costs, and traffic have pushed Californian’s to relocate to more “economically friendly” states.

Living in San Jose, Kathleen Eaton seemingly had it all: a well-paying job, a home in a gated community, even the Bay Area’s temperate weather.

But enduring a daily grind that made her feel like a “gerbil on a wheel,” Eaton reached her limit.
Skyrocketing costs for housing, food and gasoline, along with the area’s insufferable gridlock, prompted the four-decade Bay Area resident to seek greener pastures — 2,000 miles away in Ohio.
“It was a struggle in California,” Eaton said. “It was a very difficult place to live. … It’s a vicious circle.”

The migration continues…

During the 12 months ending June 30, the number of people leaving California for another state exceeded by 61,100 the number who moved here from elsewhere in the U.S., according to state Finance Department statistics. The so-called “net outward migration” was the largest since 2011, when 63,300 more people fled California than entered.
“The main factors are housing costs in many parts of the state, including coastal regions of California such as the Bay Area,” said Dan Hamilton, director of economics with the Economic Forecasting Center at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
“California has seen negative outward migration to other states for 22 of the last 25 years.”

And you can’t forget the cost of rent….

Priya Govindarajan, a San Francisco resident, is planning to leave the Bay Area at the end of June and head with her husband, Ajay Patel, to North Carolina.
Govindarajan, who works in the consumer packaged goods industry, and her husband, who is in the medical profession, determined that their wages aren’t going far enough to cover their living expenses.
Living in UC San Francisco housing, the couple pays $2,100 a month in rent. And they have to cough up $1,900 a month for child care.
“My husband’s salary would be in the six figures, but six figures is not enough to cover the rent, day care (and) food prices,” Govindarajan said. “It all starts to add up.”
Govindarajan said she figures they can put down 20 percent on a nice house in North Carolina and have a monthly payment of $1,800 — which would include the mortgage, property taxes and insurance.
“I get why people want to live in the Bay Area, I really do,” Govindarajan said. “But it is so difficult to live here, especially for people coming here for the first time.”