Pennsylvania Can Learn from Ohio and West Virginia

Originally published by RealClearPennsylvania.

Over the last decade, Pennsylvania has lost population and businesses to more competitive states. But this outmigration offers clues on how Pennsylvania can once again become a thriving destination state.

Since 2020, Pennsylvania has lost 49,000 residents to domestic migration, according to Census data. The commonwealth has also lost interstate migration in 13 of the past 14 years. Over the last decade, Pennsylvania lost about 280,000 residents to other states. 

Pennsylvania’s outmigration carries some foreboding economic consequences. Health care groups worry that “the state’s working-age population is shrinking and its retired population is growing larger.” Another state agency predicts that “the state’s rural communities will shrink, grow older and strain limited social and health services.”

Read more at RealClearPennsylvania.