Do You Live Here? This State Was Named One of the Least Desirable Places to Move
A household now needs a minimum annual income of $204,800 to afford the median California home, a threshold that has topped $200,000 in 13 of the last 14 quarters. Only 22% of California households can afford a median-priced home today, compared to 44% nationally. The state has lost residents to domestic migration for more than two decades. In 2026, a new national report confirms just how steep that decline has become.
California Scores 38.06 Out of 100, Third Worst in the Nation
A 2026 ConsumerAffairs report ranked all 50 states across five categories: affordability, safety, economic strength, healthcare and education, and quality of life. California landed at 48th overall, trailing only New Mexico and Louisiana. Affordability and safety carried the heaviest weight, 25 points each. California finished dead last in affordability and 49th in safety, and those two scores outweighed its stronger marks elsewhere.
All 10 Worst States to Move to Share One Trait: Weak Safety Scores
The 10 worst states for 2026 are New Mexico, Louisiana, California, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Alaska, Mississippi, Oregon, and Arizona, all Southern or Western states. California and Oregon share a distinct failure mode: both post above-average healthcare and education scores, yet their affordability rankings collapse to 50th and 44th. Louisiana and New Mexico fall for different reasons, dragged down by safety, healthcare, and education gaps rather than cost alone.
A Mid-Tier California Home Now Costs $775,000
The California Legislative Analyst’s Office reports mid-tier single-family homes priced around $775,000 in early 2026, more than double the typical U.S. home. Qualification has slipped fast: about 46% of California households could afford a bottom-tier home mortgage in 2026, down from 57% in 2019. For mid-tier homes, only 23% qualify today, down from 31% seven years earlier. Incomes have not kept pace with the climb.
California Lost 216,000 Residents to Domestic Migration in a Single Year
Net domestic migration from California climbed to a loss of 216,000 people in 2024-2025. From 2010 through 2024, nearly 10 million people left California for other states, while just over 7 million arrived from elsewhere in the country. The state lost 532,000 lower-income adults over the past decade, more than 10% of that population group, alongside a smaller net loss of 165,000 higher-income adults and 75,000 college graduates.
California Ranks as the Second Most Dangerous State in the Country
California averages 4.9 violent crimes and 20.78 property crimes per 1,000 residents, above the national averages of 3.6 and 17.6. Its unemployment rate sat at 5.3% as of April 2026, compared to a 4.2% national average, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those numbers helped push California to 41st for economic strength overall, a ranking that runs counter to the scale of the state’s economy.
New Hampshire Leads 2026’s Best States, With Utah and Idaho Close Behind
New Hampshire topped the 2026 rankings with a score of 68.51, followed by Utah, Idaho, Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Nebraska, Vermont, and Wyoming. These states span New England, the Mountain West, the Great Plains, and the Mid-Atlantic, with no single region dominating. What connects them is consistency: none collapses in any one category the way California does in affordability or Louisiana does in safety.
California’s Housing Costs Rose Three Times Faster Than Wages Since 2020
Between January 2020 and September 2025, monthly payments on mid-tier California homes rose 74%, and bottom-tier home payments jumped 78%. Average hourly wages grew just 25% over the same stretch, while rents climbed 42%. California remains the world’s fifth-largest economy on paper, home to Apple, Google, and Meta. That output has not translated into affordability for the households trying to build a life there.
A UC Study Found Movers Save $672 a Month by Leaving California
A California Policy Lab study tracked households from 2016 through 2025 and found that those who leave the state land in communities with average monthly housing costs running $672 lower. International migration once offset some of California’s domestic losses, but net international migration fell to 126,000 people in 2024-25, roughly half the prior year’s level, after humanitarian migration programs were terminated in 2025.
The Wage-to-Housing Gap Has Been Widening for 14 Years
In 2012, California’s median household income was roughly enough to qualify for a mid-tier home mortgage. By 2026, that same income falls short of even a bottom-tier home. State legislation like SB 79 may ease supply at the margins, but the Legislative Analyst’s Office has tracked this gap quarter by quarter with no reversal in sight. For anyone weighing a move to California, that widening gap, not the state’s parks or industry clusters, is the number that matters most.