Back in 1850, the New York Tribune’s Horace Greeley famously quipped (or maybe not, since there is still a debate as to whether the accreditation to him is valid), “Go West, young man,” encouraging down-and-out factory workers to seek out the fertile farmland of the west for the opportunity to succeed and seek a better life.
Whether or not Greeley actually made the statement is irrelevant, but it became the catchphrase for an entire generation of westward expansion across the United States.
Now, the United States is experiencing a new chapter in mass migration, and people are moving again. But this time there are heading south, to Mexico, trying to get away from the illogical leftist reforms of a Democratic government in California that has left them struggling against surging crime and out-of-control prices.
“Now that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and his cronies have ruined their state and inflation is crushing households, thousands of Californians are reversing the typical pattern and moving to Mexico,” wrote the Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien in his Monday, June 13, column.
“Many of the emigres count on the fact that their salaries from the United States enable them to afford much more south of the border.”
“I would say at least half are coming down from California,” added Darrell Graham of the Baja123 Real Estate Group in an interview with CNBC. “Suddenly the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California, are (making them want) to come down to Mexico.”
As CNBC duly noted, “California continuously ranks high as one of the country’s most expensive states to live in,” with a median asking price for a home at about $797,470.
Based on economic studies in the state, only 25 percent of the Californian households could afford that in the fourth quarter of 2021.
“Monthly rent in Mexico can average as little as $430 per month, while rents can average as high as $1,500 north of the border in San Diego,” the UK’s Daily Mail pointed out.
So, there you have it: economic refugees heading to Mexico rather than other U.S. states.
I image that many of these are people who can work from home in Mexico and collect their salary in U.S. dollars, the so-called digital nomads. (According to a recent report, about 3 million of these international mobile worker-from-homers have chosen Mexico as their remote office destination-of-choice since the outbreak of the global covid-19 pandemic.)
I’ve met some people in Mexico City who work in financial services and do everything by phone or internet.
In the meantime, this all goes to further confirmation that the Golden State has lost its glisten and is in decline. People there want out.
P.S. You can listen to my show.
The image is from my American Thinker post and this post was also published in Mexico.