During the pandemic, sunny Florida was a hotspot for movers looking for beautiful weather year-round and lax pandemic restrictions.

But while newcomers were hoping to get a piece of paradise, Floridians were moving out, newly released census data shows.

An estimated 674,740 people reported their permanent address changed in 2021 from Florida to another state, according to the data. That’s more than any other state, including New York or California, two states have gotten the most attention for outbound migration during the pandemic. The dataset, which was released in June, tracked state-to-state migration through responses to the American Community Survey that year.

Being a Business publication that makes such a fundamental data mistake as inverting the numbers that prove your own story completely false, should be embarrassing as hell, and calls the veracity of all of your other articles into question as well. https://t.co/09hvqn8DmZ pic.twitter.com/cNNnfRRsBv

— Na'linda (@MzBlckSheep) July 11, 2023

Okay this is embarrassing. @businessinsider looked at the data table and thought 674,740 was the number of people who LEFT Florida.

But it was the number of 2021 Florida residents who had lived in a “different state of residence 1 year ago”.

i.e. 674,740 people MOVED IN 🙄 pic.twitter.com/UdpEo0KSZ7

— Janine Curran (@janinereturns) July 11, 2023

[Don’t write about the data unless you know about the data. Here’s another problem with this — it’s not a net measure. There are other data for net measures of population shifts, even from the Census Bureau. This clearly shows Florida, Texas, and much of the South as big net gainers in population — while California, New York, and much of the Northeast as net losers. — Ed]

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]