Californians are fleeing San Francisco in droves, study says. Where are they going?

San Francisco saw an exodus of residents during the coronavirus pandemic, with the net number of exits increasing 649% in 2020, according to a new report published by the California Policy Lab.

That said, they didn’t move far.

For the most part, the city dwellers settled in other parts of Northern California.

“Although net migration to the Bay Area and San Francisco has dropped since this time last year, most movers appear to be sticking close to home, with approximately two-thirds of San Franciscan movers remaining in the Bay Area economic region and nearly 80% remaining in the state,” according to the report.

Last year, 38,800 left San Francisco. In 2019, 5,200 city residents settled elsewhere.

The Sierra region, including Nevada and El Dorado counties, saw one of the largest influxes of people from the Bay Area, during the last quarter of 2020, according to the report. The report did not include an estimate of how many people settled in those communities.

Researchers used consumer credit data to track residents’ movements from quarter to quarter in 2020. They found that, contrary to popular wisdom that Californians are fleeing the state in droves, that theory is not supported by the data.

However, the state did see a marked decrease in new residents in the fourth quarter of 2020, with 267,000 leaving the state and just 128,000 moving in.

“Despite this, the peak number of departures in 2020 is on par with those in earlier years. In sum, we see no marked increase in exits, though entrances have slowed,” the report said.

The report also found that there is no evidence to show that the wealthy are leaving the state in any significant numbers.

“Some folks seem to be worried about the tax implications of wealthy individuals leaving the state, but we don’t yet see any dramatic evidence that rich households are fleeing California en masse,” said California Policy Lab Executive Director Evan White in a statement accompanying the report. “Unfortunately, because the state relies heavily on income taxes on the uber-wealthy, the departure of even small numbers of wealthy people could negatively impact revenues if they aren’t replaced with new entrants.”