Idaho and Montana are winning the competition for America’s families

What if the best report card for state government wasn’t a poll or an election?

What if it was a moving truck?

Every year, millions of Americans make one of the biggest decisions of their lives: whether to stay where they are or move somewhere they believe offers greater opportunity. They aren’t just choosing a new home. They’re choosing a different set of public policies.

A new report from the Mercatus Center examined nearly 34 million interstate moves between 2018 and 2023, including 6.7 million Americans who moved in 2023 alone. Its conclusion is difficult to ignore: Americans are increasingly choosing states with lower tax burdens, greater economic freedom and more abundant housing.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the Mountain West.

Idaho continues to be one of America’s biggest migration success stories. In 2024, nearly 73,000 people moved to Idaho from another state, while about 60,000 left, resulting in a net gain of approximately 12,500 new residents. Washington was Idaho’s single largest source of newcomers, followed closely by California.

Montana has experienced a similar transformation. Once viewed as a state people visited, it has increasingly become a state where people choose to build their futures. Over the last decade, Montana gained more than 71,000 residents through domestic migration, an extraordinary figure for a state of just over one million people.

These aren’t accidents.

Over the past several years, Idaho and Montana have pursued policies designed to make their states more competitive. Idaho has maintained one of the nation’s lowest overall tax burdens while embracing regulatory reforms and educational opportunity. Montana has simplified its tax code, reduced income tax rates and worked to improve its economic competitiveness.

People have noticed.

Every family that chooses Idaho or Montana brings purchasing power, investment, entrepreneurship, charitable giving and future tax revenue. Every newcomer strengthens the state’s economy and its communities.

Washington tells a different story.

The Evergreen State remains blessed with extraordinary natural beauty, a talented workforce and innovative employers. But it has also moved steadily toward higher taxes, greater regulation and rising costs of living. A capital gains tax, a new income tax on high-income earners, higher gasoline taxes, carbon pricing and rapid growth in state spending have all added to the cost of living and doing business.

Perhaps that’s why Washington continues to be one of the largest sources of new residents moving to Idaho.

The same pattern is playing out nationwide.

Over the last decade, California has lost nearly 1.8 million residents through domestic migration. New York has lost more than 1.8 million. Illinois has lost more than 868,000. These are not isolated cases. They are among the nation’s highest-tax states, and they continue to see families choose other places to live.

Of course, taxes aren’t the only factor people consider. Jobs matter. Housing matters. Schools matter. Public safety matters. Family ties matter.

But the Mercatus research finds that tax burdens, economic freedom and housing availability consistently rank among the strongest predictors of interstate migration. In other words, policy matters.

That’s an encouraging lesson for Idaho and Montana.

Neither state has the beaches of California or the financial centers of New York. Neither enjoys year-round sunshine. Yet both continue to attract families because they’ve created an environment where opportunity is easier to find and success is easier to achieve.

That doesn’t mean the work is finished.

Housing affordability remains a challenge in both states. Continued population growth will test infrastructure, transportation and public services. Success today doesn’t guarantee success tomorrow.

But the broader lesson remains clear.

States are competing for people.

Every moving truck carries future workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and community leaders. Every interstate move is a vote of confidence—or a vote of no confidence—in a state’s direction.

Right now, Americans are casting more of those votes for Idaho and Montana.

The challenge is to preserve the policies that earned that trust while avoiding the mistakes that have driven so many families away from states like Washington, California, New York and Illinois.

Because in the competition between the states, people always get the final vote.