Quote from the OCRegister blog piece on the U-Haul moves: “It’s perhaps a modest sign that cascading home prices have lured in some new residents or that those same low housing values have forced many Californians to stay put because they can’t afford to sell.”

Reduced worker mobility is one known effect of falling house prices. Excess state unemployment is thus partly a result of unemployed workers being unable to move to better opportunities. I doubt the claim that excess unemployment is due to unemployed workers moving here, but it could be true to some degree – people attracted here by the welfare state aspects.

I do not know how to reconcile this with the anecdotal reports (e.g. city-city) of price differences.