When the Census Bureau released state-to-state migration estimates from the 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) in November of last year, they showed that Connecticut had experienced a net gain of nearly 57,000 domestic migrants since 2021. This would mean that nearly 57,000 more people moved into Connecticut from another U.S. state than moved from Connecticut to another state. This surprisingly large boost in net domestic migration relative to prior years was widely covered by local news outlets (for example, CT Insider: Connecticut gained 57,000 residents in 2022, the state's biggest increase in almost two decades).

However, this estimate differed markedly from that of the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program (PEP), which estimated that Connecticut experienced a net loss of about 13,500 domestic migrants in 2022. Read on to learn more and learn what data users should do.