Moving companies, state economist say new Alaska arrivals outnumber departures
Published Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — Bucking a general perception that people were moving out of state last year, an Atlas Van Lines report shows the company moved more people into Alaska than out in 2008.
Although little hard data was available to back it up, many people around Fairbanks noted an outflow of families in 2008. Some attributed that to the high costs of energy, but a major deployment from Fort Wainwright may have held more sway.
Neal Fried, an economist with the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said the Atlas figures didn’t completely surprise him.
“Our economy was still sort of expanding in 2008,” he said. “The nation’s was contracting in a lot of places ... Less people during those periods will leave Alaska, when it looks lousy out there.”
He also cautioned that the data could be a little skewed. After all, Fried noted, moving company services can be outside the realm of some families’ relocation budgets. Those most likely to sign on for a van line service are taking a position at a corporation or moving with the U.S. military.
The 2008 migration trends report, which only considers business done through Atlas, reveals 183 inbound moves compared to 123 outbounds in 2008.
That contrasts with 218 moves into Alaska in 2007, and 143 departures. The state has netted more inbound moves each year since 1999.
Fried said that Alaska realizes greater in-migration when the rest of the country is hit with recessions. He expects population growth in 2009, as occurred in the 1970s, early 1980s and early 1990s, when unemployment nationally hit more than 7 percent. Now, that indicator is at 7.2 percent.
“Can we use the past to judge the future? Not always,” Fried acknowledged. “Americans are moving less than they ever had.”
He attributed slow-downs to an aging Baby Boomer demographic and increased difficulties selling homes Outside.
According to data provided by Kerri Hart, a marketing communications specialist with Atlas, only four families used the company’s services to move out of Fairbanks in 2008. One North Pole family moved out. In comparison, 12 clients moved into Fairbanks, four relocated to Eielson Air Force Base and one moved to Fort Wainwright.
Although self-serve moving company U-Haul didn’t have numbers to release, a spokesperson said the company recorded 0.1 percent more moves into Alaska than out in 2008. In 2007, the moves balanced each other out.
Moves were down nationally, and many of those who did relocate opted for the northwest, the report said. Alaska and Oregon drew the second and third-highest percentages of inbound moves, respectively.
Fried noted that Alaska’s population has never been very stagnant.
“We’re still fairly footloose here,” he said. “There are big movements going in both directions all the time in Alaska.”
Contact staff writer Rena Delbridge at 459-7518.
Community Discussion
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Folks can afford to move TO Alaska using a moving service, but we can't afford to move OUT. Most folks I know who moved out sold everything they could through yard sales, threw the rest out at the recycle center, packed up the car and hit the road south. I know of only one family who used a moving service to leave, but I know of dozens who used a moving service to arrive. Folks leave broke. I love Alaska, and I'm happy to be here. But it's hard living. I can't blame my friends for leaving. (I miss them, though).
Like I said in an earlier post, as times get worse in the rest of the country, more people will be moving here for our "free money". Only a matter of time before unemployment levels are back to what they were in the 80's or worse.
Free money? Where? We spend approximately 3-5 times more on heating costs here compared to the lower 48. The PFD only seems to help offset heating costs depending on how you spend it.
Also, as the article states, seems to calculate only civilian moves.
Guess to really help FNSB economists with accuracy, would need to include all moves and just not civilian, as each person is a source of local spending. <shrugs>
The "free money" was a joke, but that is the way people in the rest of the country see it. All they can see is they are losing their jobs and the State is giving money away up here.
I just moved 15,600 lbs of household goods from Fairbanks to Colorado Springs last month for a cost of $8400. I hired a 40 foot conex and filled it up and unloaded it myself. Total cost for the move including driving down the Alcan was less than $12K. We did unload many pounds of stuff at garage sales but most was left at the Resource agency and transfer site. Cost of Gas for driving the 8 day 3500 miles trip was $400. Cost for lodging was $825.
Wow what a way to make the numbers what you wont them to be. Using one moving company to judge an inportant final number is really stupid. Now what about the numbers anyway? Were their more babys born than deaths? Did the Army move in more than the moved out? Did the ones sent over seas remain as still here? Did the north slope workers REALLY move here? And more important SO WHAT?
Using the number of military families moving in and out of Alaska is kinda of bogus information. Why not count the number of empty houses and apartments that are not on military installations? More for sale or for rent signs may give you a better count of what is really happening.
This is another none story. There isn't a bit of information that shows direct lasting impact on the future of Alaska economics or prosperity. The DNM it the nail on the head by putting a little blurb about the military and corporations using this service.
Most of us know the increase of military personnel taking place in the state, but with the new administration and our economic depression just on the horizen a reverse is quite possible.
The article identifies that people arrive and leave without using a moving service, but makes no determination of the numbers that are leaving.
If they had investigated this more and determined the correct data of those arriving and leaving (excluding the military) and if the study were to be conducted say end of summer 2009.
The article title might read "State Population On the Decrease"
This made the news. We think, but we don't know, so really we can not verify so it may not be true. Typical NewsMiner.
I have never heard of anyone being able to afford a moving service to leave Alaska. Everyone I know who has left has liquidated their belongings and driven off with the rest. The only story this tells is that the military has brought in more people than they sent away. Not much news in that, after all there is still a war going on. If I was a state economist I would get the PDF filings, public records, and see how many people do not file from year to year. I guess that would involve the use of a computer though...
Why does nearly every article in the News Miner end at the beginning of the story?
After reading the FDNM, I'm always left with the feeling that the deadline is more important than the content.
This could have been a comprehensive article; a true perspective of numbers and trends, but it ended up hardly worth my time to read.
Shall we go to Sportsmans Warehouse and find out how many people went hunting this fall? Sheesh!!!
Oh well, the news-minus is just in step with most media.
I've heard the " Taking it with me or landfill' comment a bit lately. Here's an idea: quit trying to sell your stuff so high at your moving sales. You think you're going to make out better by paying to ship/transport south? then what, sell it down there in a depressed economy? I heard that a bit this summer: "if I can't get what I want, it's going to the transfer station or I'm taking it with and sell it down there." Good luck with that!
That probably explains why there are so many dumpster-divers. Why pay top-dollar for used crap if you can get it free ( saving gas yard-saling to boot)?
Although it excludes flights,the boys at the border can tell the real story.
Hmmmm. Well, the seven that I know who left packed up and drove themselves out.
truthinnews: I never heard anything about a PFD prior to moving up here. But I know from experience, we don't get money for nothing. For example, just look at the past 6 years of gas prices history.
And, nobody in their right mind in the lower 48 is going to want to move here.
One mention of anything less then -30F and they'll be whining to their Mommy.
But if they're avid hunters or fisherman, they'll do one of those weekend safari's up here when it's above 30F.
Wimps. ;-)
I "wanted" very much to move here. I looked for a job first, then applied to grad school. I finally moved up here in 2006. Almost immediately thereafter, my SO was diagnosed with a cancer that, due to some bureaucratic rigmarole not worth discussing, could only be treated in our former home state. So we moved back for a year, and then returned, with his cancer in full remission, in 2007. This is my second Winter since, and my only Summer here has been nothing but rain and flooding.
And I love it here.
We live in a dry cabin with two retired sled dogs. I run or ski with my dogs as long as it is above -35. Below that, I still walk with them.
No complaints here. And I consider myself to be in my right mind. And I don't misuse apostrophes. :)
I guess it was not cold enough for long enough. As far as moving services, I am like Glow and Fairbanksgas, the people I have known to leave, packed their stuff and drove or flew out. When it is 45 below, I do think; it keeps three things out of here, tourist, newcomers, and mosquitos. Don't get me wrong, I was a newcomer once myself, as were most of us, but I am sick of people coming up and within a few short years they are trying to change our place to look like where they came from. We do not NEED the crap from the United States, that is why many of us are here!!!
Yukon,
last time I checked we were a part of the United States, isnt that true?
Freedom!!! ;-)
I was wondering what effect Sarah Palin was going to have with the unemployed outside. With all the campaign speeches about the gas pipeline getting started soon and all the other press about the "free money" everyone gets here I sort of cringed at all the press focusing their limelight here for lots of reasons. Press might be good for Sarah Palin presidential ambitions but maybe not so good for Alaska. Hope it doesn't turn into another mass influx of lower 48 refugees like in 75.
I moved here in 1983, on an airplane. My husband moved here in something like 1965, over the border. So, 2 out of 2 did not use a moving service. This story is just about bad accounting.
Nah. As soon as Obama won the election, everybody forgot about Alaska. The nice could weather we had last week sealed this fate. Mention -30F, and we become last years ice cream. :-/
People in the lower 48 would rather sooner flock across the border of MX before even considering flocking to AK!
Ditto concerning the limelight on AK if she got elected. If she did, then they would flock for fun.
Another cold snap in Feb/March will tell the tale.
I was rather miffed about the PFD getting bandied about the way it did nationally.
We definitely don't need to be discovered as a permanent destination, maybe a little more breathing room for traditional activities.
This same story pretty much degenerated into a consequences of the PFD in the Anchorage Daily News today.
Yes, Alaska is part of the United States, and I reside in the USA.
-UNITED STATE OF ALASKA !!!
The only beneficial part of Alaska being part of the United States Govt. is obtaining federal programs , grants , and funds to keep state government alive as well as military presence for economic and stratigical reasons , as anyone that makes reported income within the 50 US states pays for all this under federal taxes.
I never consider the rest of the country as 'the lower 48' ... I only refer to that overtaxed, overgoverned multi jurisdictioned, overregulated 'were gonna tell ya how to live' place as ''the states'' , and I would much rather defect to the Far North of Canada rather than ever considering living in ''the states'' if those were the two choices left on the face of the earth.
This great land of Alaska has more freedom along with being the least taxed state of all the United States , even when I struggled to make ends meet I got thru it and now because of the Alaskan way of life , I own the american dream of having property and a home all paid for in less than 10 years time (making $12/hr income at that)...I sure as hell couldnt do that in ''the states'' by paying other additional taxes and overpriced real estate land even if I were eligible to finance as such -without going into great debt like soooooo many people are going thru right now there and abroad -while upon an almost deep recession status within a few months from now.
A lot of us Alaskan Residents have the same attitude as the pioneers when Alaska was a territory , they governed themselves with no increase of government intervention of outsider influenced CRAP that comes from ''the states'' that they want to see Alaska change (thats what Yukonjohn is referring to).
I chatted with a small handful of great pioneers that lived in Fairbanks for over 50 years plus and they told the amazing stories of past and why they still live here.
I would say as far as the civilian population goes , most people that move out of Alaska have many family and economic reasons along with crime related reasons (troubled misfits).. as to taking care of terminal ill members , or to taking over an estate where their better off financially , a better job offer in ''the states'' , etc. where people do not come back..... but half of everyone I know that actually moved away from Alaska ended up coming back with or without change in their pocket... and of course I had to give them the ''I told ya so'' speech.
However the one known fact in this article that pertains to anything would be a steady number of small increase of higher population over the years that relocate in Alaska as the stats reflect that...
For a true and more accurate and detailed analysis of this topic , we need numbers from the State of Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles upon issuing and cancelling Alaska IDs , the Alaska Dept of Revenue for filed and processed PFD applicants , as well as the Alaska Dept of Labor (to also include numbers of interstate claims filed in other states)....they have that info within a few clicks of the keyboard buttons and up to date info.
Thank god the ones that do move and never come back cannot take all the natural resources of food and timber with them , as we Alaskans can survive the day when the world goes to turmoil.
Wow!! Joe Vogler is alive!!
What a bunch of drivel. You obviously have no idea of the indirect benefits we enjoy due to Federal subsidies. Like it or not, it is being part of the Union that makes Alaska prosperous and a great place to live, at least to us who can take the extremes in weather, land, and the wacko people like some of those babbling above. You just try going and living in Canada, they dont want you there, talk to the many of Americans who have tried. And they dont need guns to chase you out either!!
Still LOL at the guy in at the hotel check-in within the middle of Canada telling her she should be able to accept US currency.
... and I thought the taco shops within the US near the MX border, accepting MX currency was crazy.
We need another, much larger, Air Force base here.
Arvay: "I "wanted" very much to move here."
Me, too. I'm glad you're here. Alaska is a wonderous place, and my SO and I also love it here. I've "wanted" to be here since 1970 when my family drove up the Alcan and spent the entire summer camping. Some hard times, here, though. Mostly, it's our friends leaving that is the hardest for us. People I thought I'd grow old with packing up and splitting. Of course, we've ended up with some great cheap furniture when friends departed. :)
Thanks, glow. Your tag seems to suit your warm personality. :)
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