Americans moved over the summer to get away from the risk of getting Covid-19; now another Covid-19 risk has got them packing.
(CN) — While threats of Covid-19 caused many Americans to move over the summer, the Pew Research Center released a study Thursday showing that more are moving now due to a stressful financial situation.
The study looked at 12,648 U.S. adults from November 18–29, 2020, and compared those results to a similar study Pew conducted in June 2020.
D’Vera Cohn, author of the study, noted that job loss was commonly cited as factor for moving.
“Americans are continuing to relocate due to the coronavirus outbreak, and our new survey shows that the pandemic’s impact on the economy is a growing reason for that,” Cohn said in an email. “A third of the people who moved due to Covid-19 told us in November that the main reason was that they had lost their job or had other financial problems, higher than the share who said that in our June survey.”
Indeed in June only 18% moved due to financial hardships, with 28% moving because of the risks of Covid-19.
The November study shows that only 14% of adults moved because of Covid-19 risks.
Still, 5% of adults said the outbreak caused their move in some way, up from 3% in June.
Where people are moving has also shifted since the summer, when many people were moving in with family.
In June, 61% of adults had moved in with family, that’s down to 42% now.
Young adults, ages 18–29, were more likely than any other age group to have moved in with family in both surveys.
This likely has to do with the fact that more adult children have moved back home with their parents last year since the Great Depression, with 27% of young adults saying they did so because their college went online due to the outbreak.
This also shows in the fact that over half of the 6% of adults who said they had someone move in with them, it was their kid.
Instead of moving in with family, 16% of adults bought or rented a long-term home, up from 9% in June.
Over the summer 13% moved to a vacation home, but that dropped to 10% in November.
While most Americans have not moved back to where they were pre-pandemic, 3 in 10 have.
Similarly, 4 in 10 of those who had someone move in with them said that person moved out. Although, 58% said at least one person still lives with them.
Moving because of Covid-19 may not be so bad, being that 43% said the move had a positive impact on them.
Notably, home sales in 2020 reached their highest level in 14 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The Department of Labor announced Thursday morning that 779,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, a decrease from the more than 800,000 claims brought the week prior. These numbers are nearly four times the level of this time last year, before the country went into a standstill.
California saw the highest uptick in unemployment claims, with more than 46,000 new claims last week.
On top of regular unemployment benefits, more than 348,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which is typically allotted for those who are self-employed.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
