Clueless Journo Reports Florida Is Losing More Population Than New York and California - Turns Out They Misread the Data

The Business Insider braintrust misread a simple data table, leading them to incorrectly report that Florida had lost more population than New York and California - only to then have to issue a correction in humiliation. 

Business Insider’s Kelsey Naubauner published an article with the headline “More people actually moved out of Florida than New York or California in 2021.” The “actually” was presumably included because even Business Insider likely found their own conclusion surprising. 

And the data was in fact surprising. According to Naubauner’s article, 674,740 people moved out of Florida in 2021, compared to only 469,577 who moved there, meaning that, contrary to everything we thought we know, Florida is somehow “actually” losing population.

So how could this be? Quite simply, Naubauner confused two numbers. The 674,740 wasn’t the number of people who left Florida, it was the number who moved there. And it wasn't 469,577 who moved to Florida, but that amount who left, meaning the state not only "actually" added over 200,000 people in 2021 - but more moved to Florida in 2021 than any other state.

Her amateurish mistake was at least corrected, leading to the amusing change in headline:

As DeSantis spox Christina Pushaw noted, Naubauner herself is a real estate reporter, and it’s thus a bit odd she didn’t ask herself how it could be that Florida’s housing market is booming if they were “actually” losing population. 

Kelsey Neubauer (she/her pronouns) is a Columbia University journalism graduate and ... get this... a REAL ESTATE REPORTER. 😳

If more people moved OUT of Florida than any other state, please explain why the Florida real estate market is like this.... pic.twitter.com/JorbOK5TSE

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) July 11, 2023

Gavin Newsom recently attempted to defend his state against criticism as it hemorrhages population in an interview with Sean Hannity, where he rapid-fire rattled off a number of misleading and twisted statistics to make his case. 

One of Newsom’s claims was that “Per capita, more Floridians move to California than Californians move to Florida.” 

Newsom is trying to distract you from what you can see with your own eyes below: 

That there is effectively no net migration between California and Florida doesn’t mean that California isn’t shrinking while Florida isn’t growing.  Texas is the biggest beneficiary of California’s refugees, and Californians are most likely to move to states with no state income tax. California and Texas make up 15% of the U.S. population and have accounted for 70% of population growth from July 2021-July 2022. 

Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros

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