WHY DOES IT COST 4 TIMES MORE TO RENT A U-HAUL TO MOVE FROM NEW YORK TO FLORIDA THAN FLORIDA TO NEW YORK?

Over the past few months of the Covid-19 pandemic panic and Antifa/BLM communist insurrection in Democrat-run cities, we have become aware of a few interesting facts, such as that gun sales are breaking all-time records, and, anecdotally, that many thousands of Americans are “voting with their feet” by moving from liberal Democrat-run cities and states to more conservative areas of the country.

I’d long heard that you could tell where people are moving by comparing the cost of renting moving trucks for one-way trips. A quick internet search did not locate any recent articles on the subject, so I decided to do my own study, which took only a few minutes. Here are the results. You may plug in any pick-up and drop-off cities on the U-Haul website to find your own results. I did this on a Sunday afternoon, while opting to pick up my hypothetical vehicles on the next Wednesday.

I only looked at 26 foot U-haul trucks, described as adequate to move the contents of a 3 to 4 bedroom house. In other words, a family making a long-distance one-way relocation move. Presumably the disparity in rental costs reflects the cost to U-Haul of hiring paid drivers to return empty trucks to liberal Democrat-run cities and states that Americans are fleeing. If you want to drive a U-Haul truck from Florida to New York, you are saving them from paying a driver to make the same trip with an empty vehicle. Please note that the greatest rental cost disparity is between New York and Florida: it will cost you four times more to rent a truck south-bound than in the other direction.

To turn this discussion in a political direction, I don’t think that many New Yorkers who are uprooting their lives to move to Florida this summer are going to be voting for senile Joe Biden and his Antifa-BLM-Democrat handlers and teleprompter speech writers in November, but that is merely a surmise on my part.  No wonder Florida real estate prices are soaring, while New York prices are crashing. (Not to mention that once they reach Florida, thousands of them are purchasing their very first firearms, which is not usually a sign that people are turning in a more politically liberal direction.)


Minneapolis to Houston: $1,654

Houston to Minneapolis: $951 (1.8X cheaper)


Chicago to Dallas: $2,779

Dallas to Chicago: $1,159 (2.4X cheaper)


Los Angeles to Dallas: $4,017

Dallas to Los Angeles: $1,469 (2.7X cheaper)


Boston to Jacksonville FL: $3,112

Jacksonville FL to Boston: $819 (3.8X cheaper)


New York to Orlando: $3,128

Orlando to New York: $783 (4X cheaper)


Portland OR to Boise ID: $1,242

Boise ID to Portland OR: $91 “large truck special”  13.6 X cheaper!

Nobody is moving from Idaho to Oregon, but they sure are going the other way!



 

Spread the love
                

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

About the Author: Matt Bracken

Old frogman, sailor, boat builder, novelist and essayist. Matthew Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, and attended the University of Virginia, where he received a BA in Russian Studies and was commissioned as a naval officer in 1979. Later in that year he graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, and in 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon. Since then he’s been a welder, boat builder, charter captain, ocean sailor, essayist and novelist. He lives in North Florida. Links to many of Matt’s short stories and essays may be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com, along with excerpts from his five novels: the Enemies Foreign and Domestic series, Castigo Cay and The Cliffs of Zerhoun. His essays and short stories can be found in “The Bracken Collection: Essays and Short Fiction 2010 to 2019”. All of his short stories and essays may be reproduced on the internet, in part or in whole, as long as proper attribution is given, and they are not sold for profit without the permission of the author.

9 Comments

  1. Jim Wiseman August 9, 2020 at 17:34

    Supply and demand. More trucks are needed to move from NY to FL, so there aren’t as many available, or at least the scarcity is anticipated. Not that many people move from FL to NY (who would?) so you get a break for moving the truck back to NY where it is needed.

  2. vyt1az August 9, 2020 at 18:21

    Matt, between this article and the one about silver / gold / ammo as money, I’m really loving your “blue collar” economics work.

    What overpaid economists with their bullshit quant models forgot from their junior year, is that economics, at it’s core, is not a real science. It’s social studies. Supply and demand is entirely about human behavior and motivation.

    This gives me a few ideas. It would make a great metric to track on a regular basis.

  3. Anonymous August 9, 2020 at 21:17

    5

  4. pixie August 10, 2020 at 01:00

    Could be insurance related due to the amount of high risk crack heads in the areas that rent the truck then hand it off to druggies and the said truck will dissapear for weeks on end until located sometimes in other states. A friend had a tenant that had to pay for multiple stolen rental cars as she would promptly hand over the keys to the local pimps either by being paid to rent them or being forced… who knows. But those in the neighborhoods watch them come and go. Also, they are running drugs and or prostitution .. stealing .. everything in these vehicles. Not to mention antifa. This surely is a good way for corporations to soak up some of that Antifa money. These trucks were used in the tail gating I saw … they are hauling people in the back for flash mobs possibly. They all have their scams. And the companies do not care what they do with them but they know the demand and how much money they can extort out of everyone. I would definitely use some antibacterial spray before driving.

    This is when it comes in handy to have a truck driver or two in the family. Its free :O)

  5. Crazy Stevo August 10, 2020 at 10:03

    Back in 2002-2003 I rented Penske trucks. They told us the reason for the difference was people were moving South and not North. That’s how they got trucks back North. But on occasion they would have to have drivers either fly South and drive the trucks back up North costing them Airfare, Food, Hotel, etc. Rarely did they take a driver and drive North and fly them South.

  6. STW August 10, 2020 at 15:05

    When we moved my daughter from Pasadena, CA to Salt Lake City it was cheaper to rent the van in SLC and drive round trip to Pasadena and back than it was to drive one way beginning in Pasadena and that includes the extra gas and mileage charges.

  7. Anonymous August 10, 2020 at 15:39

    2

  8. Machine Trooper August 10, 2020 at 21:06

    I hope you’re right about the political affiliation. It was Californians settling in Colorado, who voted for the same communist bullshit they escaped from, who ruined that state. Ditto, Nevada, New Mexico…and now Arizona is a toss-up, and Texas is only a couple amnesty programs away from turning blue.

    • NC Scout August 10, 2020 at 21:09

      They’re doing it in NC too. We call them locusts.

Comments are closed.

GUNS N GEAR

Categories

Archives

Spread the love