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Gallup Poll: Half Of Connecticut's Residents Want To Leave State

FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Conn. -- A new study shows that just under half of all Connecticut residents want to pack up and leave the Nutmeg State -- the second highest amount of any state in the nation, according to the Gallup Poll.

A new Gallup poll says that nearly half of all Connecticut residents want to move out of the state.

A new Gallup poll says that nearly half of all Connecticut residents want to move out of the state.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

About 49 percent of Connecticut residents said in the poll that they would move if they could. Only Illinois had a higher amount of people saying they want to leave their state, with 50 percent wishing to leave the Land of Lincoln.

Here are the reasons given for wanting to leave the Constitution State:

  • Work, business related: 21%
  • Friends, family: 13%
  • Quality of life/change: 12%
  • Cost of living: 12%
  • School related: 10%
  • Weather, location: 7%
  • Taxes: 6%

But due in large part to the recession, very few people are likely to follow through on their desire to move. Only 16 percent of all Connecticut residents said they were either very or extremely likely to change states in the next year, according to the study. That number was 6 percent nationally.

The hard facts are even lower than that -- only 1.5 percent of people who moved in 2012, the most recent year with data available, moved to a new state. That's down from a little over 3 percent in 1990, according to the study.

New York, Illinois, and Maryland residents all cited taxes as a key reason they wanted to move. New York and Connecticut residents were also significantly more likely to cite a high cost of living, according to the study.

The states with the lowest percentage of people who said they want to move are Maine, Montana and Hawaii.

Gallup warned that Connecticut appears particularly vulnerable to losing population in the coming few years because a high percentage of residents say they would leave if they could and larger-than-average percentages say they are at least somewhat likely to do so in the coming year.

According to 2012 Census data, 3.59 million people call Connecticut home. 

See the full Gallup poll here.

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