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Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
The good story that we’ve been telling one another – and the world – is that during the pandemic Florida, and especially Miami-Dade County, enjoyed a huge population gain from around the nation of people who wanted to escape indoor life, pandemic restrictions and high taxation.
The facts, however, tell a far different story – at least, the facts in a US Census report released last week that for the first time unveiled population shifts from the start of the pandemic on April 1, 2020, up to last July 1.
That census report shows that during the pandemic Florida did indeed get a huge influx of population, a phenomenal increase of 706,597 people statewide. Miami-Dade, however, didn’t contribute to those huge gains: the county actually lost – that’s right, lost – 27,925 persons in the 27-month period, or more than 1,000 a month.
So, as companies from high-tax states moved into Miami-Dade in highly touted transfers, more people moved out of the county than moved in.
The census bureau doesn’t do anything but count, so don’t expect its figures to tell you why Miami-Dade was left out of the population boom at the same time it was adding what have been reported as thousands of jobs from incoming companies.
In fact, those new jobs may have been coming but they had little impact during the period – from the month before the pandemic hit to July 1, 2022, the county actually lost 46,107 jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The loss of jobs in the pandemic is something we all knew. But the loss of people? Who knew?
Because the decline in the face of huge statewide gains is a puzzle that impacts government, business and potentially quality of life (much state and federal funding is based on population, as is representation in Congress and the Florida Legislature) we need to be figuring out what happened in that period and whether it is part of a trend.
As for trend, those figures for Miami-Dade population include a small recovery, a gain of 3,525 people, from July 2021 to July 2022. So maybe we only fell behind at the start of the pandemic.
But look at Florida as a whole: the state gained 416,754 people in that same one-year period ending in July 2022. Less than 1% of the state’s gain came in Miami-Dade, which is by far the state’s most populous county. By comparison, we lagged badly – far from that image of a population boom here.
Why?
Start with housing costs as a possible reason. It’s true the wealthy New Yorkers and others flocking here find the housing a relative bargain, but the numbers show that during the pandemic there weren’t enough of them to replace the tens of thousands of people leaving for, perhaps, far more affordable communities, many of them elsewhere in Florida.
Housing is just one slice of the cost of living, but a big slice. And last month, the South Florida cost of living increase was 9% while the national rise was 4.9%.
Another reason might be transportation. It’s just hard to get from here to there, and it takes longer than it used to. Adding up the time commuting an hour or more each way to a job versus potentially shorter commutes from housing a worker can afford in another community might show a potential quality of life gain outside of Miami-Dade.
Then there’s the appeal of small-town life that attracts some people. Could that be a factor?
Well, of the 67 counties in Florida, 12 of them actually lost population during the 27-month period the census looked at. Miami-Dade, the state’s biggest county by population, was the biggest loser.
But of the other losers, the largest in population at 81,708 was Monroe County – the Florida Keys – which is a long string of small towns. The largest of the other counties was barely 27,000 total population. So the smallest communities were also losers.
Just from the data, we might infer that the departure from Miami-Dade was actually not to rural areas but to other areas with urban amenities but a perception of fewer problems.
The issue is worth examination because, unless we intend to be a community dominated by wealthy newcomers served by declining numbers of middle-class and lower-income residents, some corrections seem appropriate – at least, the numbers indicate that.
The good story of a booming Miami-Dade is still a good story. In many ways it’s absolutely true, as this week’s Best of Miami sections in Miami Today amply detail. It’s a great place to live, work and play.
Still, we need to be asking ourselves why 1,000 more of our fellow Miamians exited each month than were replaced by the newcomers lured by our way of life.
Never let a good story – even a true one – get in the way of the facts.
