5 ms·

Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers

99 points by reaperducer 8mo ago

toomuchtodo 8mo ago
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/25/nx-s1-5725354/nurses-emigrate-us-canada-trump https://www.npr.org/2026/02/25/nx-s1-5725354/nurses-emigrate...
- UncleOxidant 8mo ago
  Canada is actively recruiting healthcare workers and it's apparently become quite easy to get people to move up. If I were a healthcare worker I wouldn't have to think about it for very long before having the U-Haul loaded up and ready to go.
  - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
    https://healthcareinfusion.org https://healthcareinfusion.org is actively promoted on social media channels to assist with this, a project of the Canadian commentator, writer, and former national host and producer at CBC Radio Tod Maffin. BC allocated $5M to a marketing budget to do the same.
    - SteveNuts 8mo ago
      Is there anything like this for tech workers? Or is that not a sector Canada is trying to recruit in as much?
      - barbazoo 8mo ago
        The shortage of health care workers has a larger impact on the day to day of Canadians than a shortage of tech workers. However we would even define how many tech workers one "needs".
      - 8note 8mo ago
        i dont think theres anything active, since canada has a bit of a glut of software engineers, but the big companies frequently put people who couldnt get an h1b in canada, so there must be some options
      - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
        https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/who-can-apply.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... https://immigration.ca/fast-track-high-demand-occupations/ https://immigration.ca/fast-track-high-demand-occupations/ “Canada skilled workers program” are the relevant keywords for searches. If you can’t find one that fits the work that you do, another option are visas that are non lucrative non working that are based on your investments, their income, including income from rental properties. Own a place in the US? Find a property manager, rent it out, visa secured (assuming monthly/annual income requirements are met).
- _zagj 8mo ago
  [flagged]
OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
I've lately been asking my coworkers if they would have come to the US if it looked like this back when they were first applying. Not one of them has answered yes.
- wrs 8mo ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 8mo ago
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- deleted 8mo ago
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- deleted 8mo ago
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- pm90 8mo ago
  I moved when Obama was president. I sincerely believed that we were in a post racial world. Imagine my surprise in seeing people proudly flying confederate flags in Austin! I am still hopeful. While that flag was considered “ok” then, it no longer is anymore, and I rarely see it in the urban areas.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - SlightlyLeftPad 8mo ago
    Flying confederate flags while Obama was president was considered “ok?”
    - ProllyInfamous 8mo ago
      It still is in Trenton, Georgia (whose city flag is the former Georgia Confederate flag). Weird driving through that part of the world...
    - 8mo ago
hsuduebc2 8mo ago
Just out of curiosity. The companies let you work remotely from Europe and preserve remote work?
ranger_danger 8mo ago
How? It's not like people can just decide to move to another country and they will say "sure, come on in!" right? Are they getting visas from work or a spouse or something? Surely that does not account for a vast majority of cases?
- kalleboo 8mo ago
  I have several US friends who got European citizenship through ancestry. They found a great grandmother or something from "the old country" and by proving their relation to them could get a passport.
  - UncleOxidant 8mo ago
    That got me to googling around since my grandfather was born in Germany and came to the US when he was 5 (circa 1920). But from what I'm finding it sounds like when he became a US citizen that tie to German citizenship was broken. Also, prior to 1975 the citizenship only passed down through the father - it was my maternal grandfather so it wouldn't pass down, apparently. Well, it was fun to think about the possibilities for a few minutes, anyway.
    - OneMorePerson 8mo ago
      Your case sounds complicated so I'm not sure, but two things to note: 1. US is one of only a few countries where children emigrating with parents don't officially declare intent to immigrate, they do it automatically with their parents. This means that your grandfather (whether he was aware or not) was still German, since German law says you only give it up if you "take action to immigrate" or something like that. Likewise every child since then (your mother and you) were born as US citizens "involuntarily" (as in you didn't choose) so you also retained your citizenship. 2. In 2021 Section 5 of the StAG law was updated to say that people born to German mothers between 1949-1975 are now eligible, it was updated since male only was seen as discriminatory. So theoretically say grandfather -> mother (born to male) -> you (post 1949). Not an expert so double check this. Im not an expert but my understanding of your case would be that you are not even needing to apply for status, you are literally German now, and just need to request a passport (check this with the resources on Reddit I mention below). I'd recommend checking Reddit "German Citizenship by Descent" resources. There's a couple profile names you will see there really frequently who are German citizens who can help you in finding paperwork from German government resources if needed (old birth certificates, etc.) for a small fee. You can also see public threads where people explain their case and you can see if you find one similar to yours. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/scvkwb/german_citizenship_by_descent_the_ultimate_guide/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/scvkwb/german_ci...
readthenotes1 8mo ago
Are they giving up citizenship as well?
- SlightlyLeftPad 8mo ago
  It could be beneficial to if working abroad because the United States is one of the only countries on the planet that taxes earned wages abroad while offering absolutely zero tangible benefits to those who do, perhaps besides the passport itself.
  - socalgal2 8mo ago
    Given much of the free world depends on the US for defense, maybe it's not "zero tangible benefits"? Yea, it's annoying, though. Under $130k a year you don't pay. So this is a 1%-er problem. And, you still deduct your foreign taxes and just pay the difference. I'm not saying that makes it ok, but you aren't double taxed, you're just taxes as tho you were back in the USA.
    - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
      The rest of the world pays for US defense through investing in US treasuries, which they are moving away from for obvious reasons. The US isn’t providing defense for free, they are compensated for it by the world buying their debt at favorable yields considering the debt load (~120% of GDP as of this comment). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
      - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
        I don’t really understand the advantage of doing it this way vs having them pay directly. Re debt loads - does the debt load actually materially affect default risk in this case? It’s not like US bonds are officially rated as high risk, at least. Debt to GDP is one thing but without a comparison to other bonds and their associated debt to GDP and a relationship inferred from that data it doesn’t really say anything in a vacuum. Why would it be done this way instead of just paying directly? As opposed to the more straightforward explanation of US bonds just having a favorable payout to risk ratio vs other options. It just smells like some kind of conspiratorial thinking and I’m not sure if it actually adds up. Honestly asking by the way, I haven’t seen anyone spell out the theory and it just seems quite hand wavey to me.
giggert 8mo ago
[flagged]
rich_sasha 8mo ago
I wonder what this will do to the US developer salary premium. You could, for reasons I never entirely understood, make so much more money doing the same job in the US than anywhere else. And I don't mean comparing to India or China, but comparable CoL countries in e.g. Europe. Sure, US is more productive, has bigger tech companies, attracts talent, and not least, their hectocorns are truly making the world a better place with their CRUD apps and REST APIs. But at these levels of imbalance, already a long time ago I would have expected US companies to move a lot of their software engineering efforts to Europe or India or elsewhere, and it just wasn't happening, despite SE being one of the most remote-able jobs ever. But now, the trickle of expat workers into the US appears to be drying up, apparently Americans are leaving too. There will be more and more pressure for these companies to hire abroad even for non-monetary reasons (as is already happening) and I fear for my fellow American HNians that they will like paying a fraction of the cost for the same job.
- HaloZero 8mo ago
  I imagine because the other jobs all around SE isn't as outsourcable. Designs and PM in particular. At some point the timezone pain is not worth the cost savings.
  - ozlikethewizard 8mo ago
    What exactly about design and project management isnt outsourceable if your devs are already outsourced?
- jerlam 8mo ago
  There's also a non-zero number of Canadian engineers in the US. No visa required, just a job acceptance letter for TN status at the border. Minimal language or cultural barrier and educated at competitive colleges. Those workers are going to take their US salaries and experience back to Canada if the US continues to alienate its neighbors. Canada is also building a lot more connections with nations that the US is shunning, like China. Might be time for a new Blackberry.
- beAbU 8mo ago
_zagj 8mo ago
[flagged]
- mindslight 8mo ago
  [flagged]
- MadDemon 8mo ago
  Doesn't 50% heritability mean that it's a coin flip in a 2 party country? So basically no heritability?
  - _zagj 8mo ago
    > coin flip No, you have to consider the non-genetic, environmental factors that also influence the development of political ideology, specifically the households in which children are raised and the schooling and media to which they're exposed, all of which will increasingly become conservative.
    - MadDemon 8mo ago
      That does not explain how mathematically your statement of 40%-60% heritability represents anything other than a coin flip.
- WD-42 8mo ago
  The amount of wishful thinking, copium, and straight up bad math you managed to shove into a single paragraph is astonishing.
- reaperducer 8mo ago
  Article is paywalled, but I'm guessing Translation: I didn't read this, so I don't know what it says and I don't know what I'm talking about, but I desperately need to post on the internet, so here's something I just made up…
WD-42 8mo ago
On a meta note, this comment section is absolutely littered with flagged and dead comments from fresh accounts. There are certain topics that really bring out the emotions.
- atomicfiredoll 8mo ago
  > There are certain topics that really bring out the emotions. Or, based on this thread from yesterday, the fresh accounts are bots and/or disinformation: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes[0]. - [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47152085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47152085
  - ponkloty 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - atomicfiredoll 8mo ago
      There was another new account basically created for this thread that got flagged down. Yours, which also looks like it was created for this thread, seems awful similar. (Edit: iirc even the name was similar.) While I'm sure they do want those abilities, I follow the new tab often that I disagree. And frankly, I don't really have any reason to trust what you're peddling.
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
frm88 8mo ago
Alternative link https://www.ap7am.com/en/121311/donald-dash-report-shows-americans-leaving-us-in-record-numbers https://www.ap7am.com/en/121311/donald-dash-report-shows-ame...
- smartbit 8mo ago
  this shows WSJ article https://archive.ph/K2LXY https://archive.ph/K2LXY
znpy 8mo ago
Honestly lately I’ve been feeling like this must be the perfect time to move to the US.
novaRom 8mo ago
https://archive.ph/s1hWN https://archive.ph/s1hWN
1vuio0pswjnm7 8mo ago
Works where archive.ph is blocked: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americans-are-leaving-the-us-in-record-numbers/ar-AA1X5a4f/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americans-are-leaving-t... No Javascript, text-only, HTTPS opitional: https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1X5a4f/ https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1X5a4f...

99 points by reaperducer 8mo ago

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/25/nx-s1-5725354/nurses-emigrate-us-canada-trump https://www.npr.org/2026/02/25/nx-s1-5725354/nurses-emigrate...

UncleOxidant 8mo ago
Canada is actively recruiting healthcare workers and it's apparently become quite easy to get people to move up. If I were a healthcare worker I wouldn't have to think about it for very long before having the U-Haul loaded up and ready to go.
- toomuchtodo 8mo ago
  https://healthcareinfusion.org https://healthcareinfusion.org is actively promoted on social media channels to assist with this, a project of the Canadian commentator, writer, and former national host and producer at CBC Radio Tod Maffin. BC allocated $5M to a marketing budget to do the same.
  - SteveNuts 8mo ago
    Is there anything like this for tech workers? Or is that not a sector Canada is trying to recruit in as much?
    - barbazoo 8mo ago
      The shortage of health care workers has a larger impact on the day to day of Canadians than a shortage of tech workers. However we would even define how many tech workers one "needs".
    - 8note 8mo ago
      i dont think theres anything active, since canada has a bit of a glut of software engineers, but the big companies frequently put people who couldnt get an h1b in canada, so there must be some options
    - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
      https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/who-can-apply.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... https://immigration.ca/fast-track-high-demand-occupations/ https://immigration.ca/fast-track-high-demand-occupations/ “Canada skilled workers program” are the relevant keywords for searches. If you can’t find one that fits the work that you do, another option are visas that are non lucrative non working that are based on your investments, their income, including income from rental properties. Own a place in the US? Find a property manager, rent it out, visa secured (assuming monthly/annual income requirements are met).
_zagj 8mo ago
[flagged]

OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago

I've lately been asking my coworkers if they would have come to the US if it looked like this back when they were first applying. Not one of them has answered yes.

wrs 8mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
pm90 8mo ago
I moved when Obama was president. I sincerely believed that we were in a post racial world. Imagine my surprise in seeing people proudly flying confederate flags in Austin! I am still hopeful. While that flag was considered “ok” then, it no longer is anymore, and I rarely see it in the urban areas.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- SlightlyLeftPad 8mo ago
  Flying confederate flags while Obama was president was considered “ok?”
  - ProllyInfamous 8mo ago
    It still is in Trenton, Georgia (whose city flag is the former Georgia Confederate flag). Weird driving through that part of the world...
  - 8mo ago

hsuduebc2 8mo ago

Just out of curiosity. The companies let you work remotely from Europe and preserve remote work?

ranger_danger 8mo ago

How? It's not like people can just decide to move to another country and they will say "sure, come on in!" right? Are they getting visas from work or a spouse or something? Surely that does not account for a vast majority of cases?

kalleboo 8mo ago
I have several US friends who got European citizenship through ancestry. They found a great grandmother or something from "the old country" and by proving their relation to them could get a passport.
- UncleOxidant 8mo ago
  That got me to googling around since my grandfather was born in Germany and came to the US when he was 5 (circa 1920). But from what I'm finding it sounds like when he became a US citizen that tie to German citizenship was broken. Also, prior to 1975 the citizenship only passed down through the father - it was my maternal grandfather so it wouldn't pass down, apparently. Well, it was fun to think about the possibilities for a few minutes, anyway.
  - OneMorePerson 8mo ago
    Your case sounds complicated so I'm not sure, but two things to note: 1. US is one of only a few countries where children emigrating with parents don't officially declare intent to immigrate, they do it automatically with their parents. This means that your grandfather (whether he was aware or not) was still German, since German law says you only give it up if you "take action to immigrate" or something like that. Likewise every child since then (your mother and you) were born as US citizens "involuntarily" (as in you didn't choose) so you also retained your citizenship. 2. In 2021 Section 5 of the StAG law was updated to say that people born to German mothers between 1949-1975 are now eligible, it was updated since male only was seen as discriminatory. So theoretically say grandfather -> mother (born to male) -> you (post 1949). Not an expert so double check this. Im not an expert but my understanding of your case would be that you are not even needing to apply for status, you are literally German now, and just need to request a passport (check this with the resources on Reddit I mention below). I'd recommend checking Reddit "German Citizenship by Descent" resources. There's a couple profile names you will see there really frequently who are German citizens who can help you in finding paperwork from German government resources if needed (old birth certificates, etc.) for a small fee. You can also see public threads where people explain their case and you can see if you find one similar to yours. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/scvkwb/german_citizenship_by_descent_the_ultimate_guide/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/scvkwb/german_ci...

readthenotes1 8mo ago

Are they giving up citizenship as well?

SlightlyLeftPad 8mo ago
It could be beneficial to if working abroad because the United States is one of the only countries on the planet that taxes earned wages abroad while offering absolutely zero tangible benefits to those who do, perhaps besides the passport itself.
- socalgal2 8mo ago
  Given much of the free world depends on the US for defense, maybe it's not "zero tangible benefits"? Yea, it's annoying, though. Under $130k a year you don't pay. So this is a 1%-er problem. And, you still deduct your foreign taxes and just pay the difference. I'm not saying that makes it ok, but you aren't double taxed, you're just taxes as tho you were back in the USA.
  - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
    The rest of the world pays for US defense through investing in US treasuries, which they are moving away from for obvious reasons. The US isn’t providing defense for free, they are compensated for it by the world buying their debt at favorable yields considering the debt load (~120% of GDP as of this comment). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
    - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
      I don’t really understand the advantage of doing it this way vs having them pay directly. Re debt loads - does the debt load actually materially affect default risk in this case? It’s not like US bonds are officially rated as high risk, at least. Debt to GDP is one thing but without a comparison to other bonds and their associated debt to GDP and a relationship inferred from that data it doesn’t really say anything in a vacuum. Why would it be done this way instead of just paying directly? As opposed to the more straightforward explanation of US bonds just having a favorable payout to risk ratio vs other options. It just smells like some kind of conspiratorial thinking and I’m not sure if it actually adds up. Honestly asking by the way, I haven’t seen anyone spell out the theory and it just seems quite hand wavey to me.

giggert 8mo ago

[flagged]

rich_sasha 8mo ago

I wonder what this will do to the US developer salary premium. You could, for reasons I never entirely understood, make so much more money doing the same job in the US than anywhere else. And I don't mean comparing to India or China, but comparable CoL countries in e.g. Europe. Sure, US is more productive, has bigger tech companies, attracts talent, and not least, their hectocorns are truly making the world a better place with their CRUD apps and REST APIs. But at these levels of imbalance, already a long time ago I would have expected US companies to move a lot of their software engineering efforts to Europe or India or elsewhere, and it just wasn't happening, despite SE being one of the most remote-able jobs ever. But now, the trickle of expat workers into the US appears to be drying up, apparently Americans are leaving too. There will be more and more pressure for these companies to hire abroad even for non-monetary reasons (as is already happening) and I fear for my fellow American HNians that they will like paying a fraction of the cost for the same job.

HaloZero 8mo ago
I imagine because the other jobs all around SE isn't as outsourcable. Designs and PM in particular. At some point the timezone pain is not worth the cost savings.
- ozlikethewizard 8mo ago
  What exactly about design and project management isnt outsourceable if your devs are already outsourced?
jerlam 8mo ago
There's also a non-zero number of Canadian engineers in the US. No visa required, just a job acceptance letter for TN status at the border. Minimal language or cultural barrier and educated at competitive colleges. Those workers are going to take their US salaries and experience back to Canada if the US continues to alienate its neighbors. Canada is also building a lot more connections with nations that the US is shunning, like China. Might be time for a new Blackberry.
beAbU 8mo ago

_zagj 8mo ago

[flagged]

mindslight 8mo ago
[flagged]
MadDemon 8mo ago
Doesn't 50% heritability mean that it's a coin flip in a 2 party country? So basically no heritability?
- _zagj 8mo ago
  > coin flip No, you have to consider the non-genetic, environmental factors that also influence the development of political ideology, specifically the households in which children are raised and the schooling and media to which they're exposed, all of which will increasingly become conservative.
  - MadDemon 8mo ago
    That does not explain how mathematically your statement of 40%-60% heritability represents anything other than a coin flip.
WD-42 8mo ago
The amount of wishful thinking, copium, and straight up bad math you managed to shove into a single paragraph is astonishing.
reaperducer 8mo ago
Article is paywalled, but I'm guessing Translation: I didn't read this, so I don't know what it says and I don't know what I'm talking about, but I desperately need to post on the internet, so here's something I just made up…

WD-42 8mo ago

On a meta note, this comment section is absolutely littered with flagged and dead comments from fresh accounts. There are certain topics that really bring out the emotions.

atomicfiredoll 8mo ago
> There are certain topics that really bring out the emotions. Or, based on this thread from yesterday, the fresh accounts are bots and/or disinformation: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes[0]. - [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47152085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47152085
- ponkloty 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - atomicfiredoll 8mo ago
    There was another new account basically created for this thread that got flagged down. Yours, which also looks like it was created for this thread, seems awful similar. (Edit: iirc even the name was similar.) While I'm sure they do want those abilities, I follow the new tab often that I disagree. And frankly, I don't really have any reason to trust what you're peddling.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

frm88 8mo ago

Alternative link https://www.ap7am.com/en/121311/donald-dash-report-shows-americans-leaving-us-in-record-numbers https://www.ap7am.com/en/121311/donald-dash-report-shows-ame...

smartbit 8mo ago
this shows WSJ article https://archive.ph/K2LXY https://archive.ph/K2LXY

znpy 8mo ago

Honestly lately I’ve been feeling like this must be the perfect time to move to the US.

novaRom 8mo ago

https://archive.ph/s1hWN https://archive.ph/s1hWN

1vuio0pswjnm7 8mo ago

Works where archive.ph is blocked: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americans-are-leaving-the-us-in-record-numbers/ar-AA1X5a4f/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americans-are-leaving-t... No Javascript, text-only, HTTPS opitional: https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1X5a4f/ https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1X5a4f...