Connecticut had the seventh-highest percentage of residents moving out of state in 2012, according to the 2012 edition of United Van Lines migration study.

United Van Lines handled 3,155 moves into and out of Connecticut last year, said Melissa Sullivan, communications manager for the mover. Of those moves, 1,991 were out of Connecticut to another state, or 56 percent, while 1,564 customers moved here from elsewhere, Sullivan said. "We saw the largest number of people moving from Connecticut to California and Florida," she said. "Other popular destinations for people moving from Connecticut were Massachusetts, Missouri and New York."

Professor Michael Stoll, an economist and chairman of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, said a combination of Connecticut's aging population and declining housing prices in places such as Nevada and Florida are attracting Nutmeg State residents to move elsewhere.

- New Haven Register