Blue-Collar Workers On the Road to Costa Mesa
According to an Orange County Register article, U-Haul truck rentals show that 0.2% more people are migrating into California than migrating out. Last year, the U-Haul numbers show a different story—1.8% more people moving out of California than moving in. With our poor employment rates, all I can say is that it must be truly bad in some other U.S. locations.
Since U-Haul rental for a move of over fifty-miles is often seen as an indication of where blue-collar worker are choosing to live, the speculation is that many of these California-bound migrators are blue-collar workers. Two Orange County cities make the top-fifty list: Costa Mesa is number 31; Fullerton is number 30.
Just what is the draw of blue-color workers to these two cities (and, for this blog, Costa Mesa, in particular) is worth pondering. Any speculation on why these two cities are so popular with this group? And for that matter, why are many choosing to move to California when our job market is so poor and our cost of living is still relatively high?
Source: “Moving into California,” The Orange County Register, April 23, 2009
Graphic Courtesy U-Haul