While flying on Southwest Airlines over Thanksgiving, I found an interesting grid about state populations.  It measured the states' "stickiness" and "magnetism."  Stickiness is a measure of the number of natives who never move out of the state.  The higher the stickiness, the more the natives stay put.  Magnetism measures the number of residents who were born elsewhere.  The higher the number, the higher the number of transplants in the state.

As it turns out, Texas is the stickiest state in the country (and that doesn't even count the humidity in Houston!).  A whopping 76% of born-and-bred Texans never leave the state.  While that isn't really surprising, I was not expecting to find out that we rank #34 for magnetism.  I believe we rank so low because it is based on a percentage of the state's population, not the number of the folks who move here.  With so many native Texans still here, it makes the percentage of newcomers appear low.  Really, like we're supposed to believe that Deleware (#11) is a bigger magnet - when was the last time you heard someone opine about wanting to move to Wilmington?

Some items of note about other states:  Alaska is the least sticky state, Nevada is the most magnetic, and New York is the least magnetic.  Hawaii is the most centered of the states ranking #26 in both magnetism and stickiness.  The least sticky states are all sparcely populated:  Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota (my home state), South Dakota, and Montana. 

The data was compiled by Pew Research and can be found here.

If you are a native Texan wanting to uphold the stickiness or are an aspiring Texan wanting to help us improve our magnetism ranking, contact me to get started.