As more Alaskans continue to leave than arrive, here’s where they’re moving

Alaska is losing its residents to Texas, Oregon, Washington and Florida.

That’s according to 2023 American Community Survey results, an annual demographics survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

From 2022 to 2023, Alaska lost more residents than it gained, maintaining a trend that has existed for more than a decade.

Though Alaska has long led the nation in annual population turnover — typically, about 45,000 people moved both into and out of the state annually, said Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Development demographer, Eric Sandberg — “what has changed is that the number leaving is now consistently higher than the number coming in.”

About 35,800 residents left the state between 2022 and 2023, while only about 30,676 arrived, data shows.

Last year, those leaving flocked in highest numbers to Texas, which claimed roughly 4,688 Alaska residents in 2023, according to the data. Next, Oregon took about 3,236 residents, Washington absorbed 3,098, and the furthest state from Alaska — Florida — claimed 2,280 of its former residents.

The “why” is pretty simple, according to Sandberg. There are fewer young people coming to the state, and those who are already here — a rapidly aging population — are leaving for things like retirement.

Fewer job opportunities and an overall economic downturn, beginning with a statewide recession in the late 2010s, has kept what was once a dependable population boom of adults in their 20s and 30s at a decline, Sandberg said.

From 2015 to 2020, Alaska lost about 700 more people in their early 20s every year than it gained, according to Sandberg’s research.

“There’s generally been a pattern that we attract young people and older people leave more often than come,” Sandberg said. “(A) high baby boomer population … has lifted up that number of people leaving, just by how many boomers we have approaching retirement age.”