In my Part 1 and Part 2 about Americans moving abroad, the theme of these content mill stories is the same: America is awful, so this individual/couple/family moved to country X where life is wonderful.
Reality check: An estimated 1.4 to 2.7% of American live abroad at any point in time. Most are doing a temporary abroad life – work abroad, study abroad, military service. Similarly, about 1% of Americans will retire abroad – and a significant portion of those are because they have family ties in the destination country, already have pre-existing dual citizenship, or have a right-of-descent immigration privilege due to recent ancestors having moved to the U.S. from another country.
The reality is that few Americans move abroad permanently, very few Americans retired abroad – but the media is one giant content mill that pumps out these largely faked news stories every week.
Here’s an example – but one with a huge blooper in it: More Americans Are Moving Abroad Because the US Is Too Expensive (archive.org)
It’s tricky to know exactly how many Americans have relocated to other countries, let alone the details of when or why. But as of 2023, there were almost 161 million US passports in circulation, one for nearly half of all Americans. (A generation ago, only 10% of Americans had a passport.) The State Department estimated in 2020 that a total of 9 million US citizens lived abroad, up from an estimated 5 million in 2010 — though those numbers include dual citizens born and raised abroad. The nonprofit advocacy group American Citizens Abroad puts the figure closer to 4 million.
First, the number of passports has nothing to do with how many Americans have moved abroad.
Second, prior to January 1, 2008, passports were NOT REQUIRED for travel in most of North, Central and South American, and most Caribbean Islands. Passports were not required to enter Canada or Mexico by land until January 1, 2009.
This huge change came as a result of 9/11 – and the establishment of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
Consequently, now all international travelers must obtain a passport, which was not required for many travelers before 2008. I sent an email to the author of this “story” over a week ago, but never received a reply.
Thus, citing an increased number of passports as an indicator that more Americans have moved abroad is false logic – the number has to do, especially, with a major Federal law change that required passports for many travelers where passports were not previously required.
Further, prior to 1993, passports expired after 5 years – that was changed to ten years. As a consequence, if you did travel earlier, you probably let your passport expire unless you were a very frequent traveler.
Plus, the expansion of air travel has made international travel more accessible (until Covid, and then the post Covid high prices).