Wisconsin’s two largest cities remained among the top 15 destinations for one-way U-Haul trips, a gauge of migration published annually by the moving truck company.
Madison ranked fifth in the country behind three Florida cities – Kissimmee, Palm Bay-Melbourne and North Port – and the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, which ranked second.
Milwaukee slipped one spot to 14th in this year’s ranking.
The data is based on more than 2 million one-way U-Haul truck customer transactions during the year.
As a whole, Wisconsin maintained its ranking at 13th on the U-Haul list.
However, with neighboring Illinois continuing to rank 49th out of 50, Wisconsin did not see the same growth as Indiana. The Hoosier state jumped from 12th in 2020 to 6th this past year, according to U-Haul’s data.
Among other nearby states, Iowa improved from 27th to 24th and Minnesota went from 20th to 17th. Michigan, on the other hand, fell from 40th to 42nd.
Texas claimed the top spot, climbing from second last year. Florida moved from third to second while Tennessee fell from first to third. South Carolina jumped from 15th to fourth.
The U-Haul data show a similar trend to recent U.S. Census Bureau data estimating population changes for the year ending July 1.
With Illinois suffering a net loss of more than 113,000 residents, Wisconsin added just 3,585, a 0.06% increase, while Indiana added 20,341, a 0.3% increase.
