Miami Is Decreasing in Population for First Time Since 1970s

• Miami-Dade County’s population shrank between 2019 and 2022 — its first population loss since 1970.
• Between 2020 and 2022,  almost 80,000 people left Miami-Dade county for other areas.
• And the Miami area has the most cost-burdened renters of any major metropolitan center.

Miami, which was a hotspot for crypto kings and tech bros, is seeing a comedown of late.  

Despite Florida’s boom, which helped it become the fastest-growing state between 2021 and 2022, Miami-Dade County has been losing more residents than it’s been gaining in recent years.  

Between 2019 and 2022, Miami-Dade County’s population shrank, resulting in its first population decline over a multi-year period since 1970, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The recent decline is all the more significant given the county’s population nearly doubled between 1970 and 2010, according to data from the Florida Regional Economic Analysis project. 

Between 2020 and 2022, the county also lost close to 80,000 people through net migration, with people leaving for other parts of Florida or other states, according to a report from the Brookings Institution based on U.S. Census Data. 

While unemployment rates in Miami are among the lowest in the country, the area’s surging housing prices may partly be responsible for driving residents out. 

The median home value in Miami is a little over $550,000, an increase of close to 8% over the past year, according to online listing site Zillow. Home prices in Miami have surged 53% since June 2020, the Journal reported, citing data from Zillow. The median home value for Miami-Dade County as a whole is now close to $490,000, up around 7% over the past year, according to Zillow. 

Even those in the rental market are struggling to make ends meet. 

The city has the highest share in the U.S. of “cost-burdened renters” or renters that are paying 30% or more of their household income on rent. Approximately 61% of those in Miami’s rental market fall into this category, the Journal said, citing a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University that was published this year.

The median income for the county is around $57,815, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which was last collected between the period of 2017-2021. 

Some people are moving to other parts of Florida in search of bigger homes with lower price tags.

The Journal reported that one couple recently sold their 1,000 square foot home in Miami to move to a larger house in Ocala, which is about four and half hours away by car. Yet, the husband is still commuting back to Miami every week to work as a barber, and the wife is struggling to land a job in her new home, the Journal reported. 

According to a recent LinkedIn study cited by the Journal, the most popular destinations for people leaving the Miami area include Orlando, the Tampa Bay area, Atlanta, and Jacksonville — all of which are cities where the average home prices are at least $100,000 cheaper that Miami, according to estimates from Zillow.