For the past year I have been reading stories from the click bait tabloid pulp content mills about stories of Americans who moved abroad. These appear mostly in Business Insider, CNN Travel, CNBC Make It and a few other pubs.
Virtually all the stories have a standard format:
- America is awful, expensive, violent, costs too much, too much stress, health care too expensive, pace of life too intense, not enough free stuff – insert your beef here,
- so … this individual/couple/family moved to country X where everything is idyllic.
This is captured in this set of consecutive stories from Google News
I summarized nearly 200 of these stories and found that
- over 60% of those who moved abroad did so via marriage to a foreigner, or already had dual citizenship, or had a unique privilege of “right-of-descent” immigration to their destination country. In other words, about 2 in 3 of those who moved abroad had immigration privileges that most people don’t have.
- 40% of the stories involved subjects who work as writers – because they can do their work from any location, unlike those who build stuff, sell stuff in stores, provide health care and do all the jobs that make everyone else’s civilized lives possible. These writers have no idea how the real world has to do hands on work, or that real work by others is necessary to make these writers’ lives possible.
Most Americans cannot readily pack up and move to another country – contrary to the image these fake news stories produce. Why does the media runs these stories? Click-bait sells eyeballs. Lots of people like to dream of a different life – it’s cheap escapism and easy for content mill English Lit majors to churn out rapidly, often sourced to social media stories.
Estimates range from 2%-3% of Americans live abroad at any point in time – about 20-25% of those are U.S. military personnel. The State Department estimates up to 9 million Americans may be abroad – but their tally includes travelers who have not really moved abroad; hence, another estimate puts the number at 5 million.
27% of Americans who are abroad are living in Mexico – and most of those are dual U.S./Mexican citizens – by virtue of being born in the U.S. to Mexican national parents. About 12-13% are living in Canada – many are Canadians who came to work in the U.S., and also have dual citizenship. Some are Americans who took jobs in Canada and have permanent residency status – and since that is their home, that’s where they chose to retire.
The media loves to run endless stories of Americans buying “$1 Euro” homes in Italy and retiring abroad. The reality is perhaps 1% (0.7% to 1.3%) of Americans retire abroad. And those 1 Euro homes come with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of fix up costs, and often many restrictions (investment, occupancy time frame, age restrictions).
We know that few Americans retire aboard from several sources including where Social Security checks get mailed (and 96% of Americans aged 65 or over get Social Security checks – hence, nearly everyone). Also, Americans are eligible for Medicare at age 65 – if they leave the U.S., they can’t use it. If they don’t pay their Part B premiums while gone, then if they move back in the future, they pay a +10% penalty for future premiums, for every year they didn’t pay Part B. After 10 years, that means if they move back, they’ll pay twice the going rate for Part B. Hence, it does not make sense for most Americans to retire abroad – where they will have buy independent health insurance.
This data points to around 1% of Americans have retired abroad.
Many of those who retire abroad were already working/living abroad and/or had dual citizenship. In the former, it is simpler to stay where the life already is . In the latter, many “move home”. Another large group of retirees move abroad because they have family there.
Most Americans do not retire abroad contrary to the media nonsense. These stories are literal fake news.
