Inland Empire migration split

Riverside and San Bernardino counties are no longer moving in lockstep: one is holding up better on migration while the Inland Empire’s overall balance has worsened. (irs.gov) The Internal Revenue Service’s county migration files track year-to-year address changes on tax returns and now run through 2022-2023. Daniel MacDonald, an economics professor at California State University, San Bernardino, used those filings to show the two Inland Empire counties are diverging rather than following one regional pattern. (irs.gov) (substack.com) That split lands in a region where Riverside County had 2,529,933 residents on July 1, 2024, and San Bernardino County had 2,214,281. The Inland Empire is large enough that even modest changes in household flows can shift where employers recruit and where workers decide to live. (census.gov 1) (census.gov 2) The movement matters because the Inland Empire still depends heavily on workers moving around the region and commuting out of it. The Southern California Association of Governments said in its 2025 county report that a significant share of the Inland Empire resident workforce will continue to commute to jobs in adjacent coastal counties. (scag.ca.gov) Long commutes are already part of the local economy. Riverside County workers posted a mean travel time to work of 35.5 minutes in the 2024 American Community Survey, well above the California average of 29.7 minutes listed by Census Reporter. (censusreporter.org) The region’s job mix raises the stakes for any migration split between the two counties. University of California, Riverside said in a 2024 labor report that transportation, distribution and logistics is the primary source of jobs in San Bernardino County and the second-largest employer in Riverside County. (news.ucr.edu) That same University of California, Riverside summary said many blue-collar logistics jobs pay modestly, with median annual pay just over $25,000 for laborers, stockers and order fillers and just over $23,000 for packers and packagers. A county that keeps attracting or retaining households more effectively can widen its labor pool for those employers faster than its neighbor. (news.ucr.edu) The broader economy is not giving the region much cushion. The Southern California Association of Governments said job growth in the Inland Empire slowed in 2025, with gains concentrated in health care, logistics and government, and called the 12-to-18-month outlook “bleak.” (scag.ca.gov) For warehouse operators, manufacturers and other labor-intensive occupiers, the practical question is no longer just whether the Inland Empire is growing. It is which side of the county line is keeping workers closer to jobs as the region’s overall migration picture softens. (irs.gov) (scag.ca.gov)