I was wrong about geographic mobility

Noah Smith

has a great post about how many of the “facts” that circulate around the media and academia are actually false.

One such fact hit close to home. Apparently the decline in geographic mobility I’ve been talking about around these parts is fake news.

At least I was in good company. Smith writes that in addition to the two of us, Tyler Cowen, Mike Konczal, Jeremy Horpedahl, as well as many journalists, relied on the same government data, which indicated fewer Americans were moving to opportunity (or anywhere else).

Long(ish) story short, around 2015 researchers started to notice that different sources disagreed. Some showed big declines, others small declines, and some even showed increases in geographic mobility.

I wanted to share that with you because integrity or whatever. If being less of the problem (it’s me) is as easy as a follow-up diary entry then yes I will do that.

But also, I think who’s moving might be even more important than how many are moving.