California is experiencing something of a statistical anomaly 8 more people are moving out of the state than are moving in, but the population continues to grow.

It?s fairly easy to explain. Last year, 135,173 more people moved to other states than moved into California. During the same period, births and the arrival of immigrants pushed California?s population up by 1.16 percent.

So, while home prices, limited job opportunities and the ever-present combo of earthquakes and wildfires keep driving people out, California remains on track to be the nation?s first 50-million-person state within a few years.

Still, it?s kind of sad to see entire families loaded into their SUVs, towing trailers filled with furniture, clothes and toys, quietly heading east on I-10, or north on I-5.

They are, of course, searching for a better life, one in which home prices are not hopelessly out of reach 8 even with California?s rapidly deflating housing market 8 mortgages are even more difficult to get, and there are dwindling supply of jobs that provide the kind of income that allow someone to afford one of those homes.

For those folks, California represents just too great a struggle for survival. It is a situation that worries policy makers, and their concerns are exacerbated by California?s 8.2-percent unemployment rate, which is a full 1.5 percentage points higher than the national jobless rate.

A noted historian, Joel Kotkin, recently wrote that the net out-migration of residents indicates a state in deep trouble 8 trouble that will only get worse because of state government?s dysfunction, and the widening gap between California?s rich and poor.

At the same time, however, a study released by the Pew Research Center adds credence to California?s reputation as the place to be 8 still. While Californians are often depicted as rootless souls in search of the next good wave, the plain truth is that nearly three-quarters of the folks born in this state stay here.

Only Texas, North Carolina and Georgia have higher rates of native-borns still living in the state.

So, for the people who were born here, and many of the rest of us, there simply is no place like home.

December 26, 2008