The recession and housing bust severely impacted the migration of people to and from Minnesota, according to new U.S. Census reports. Comparing 2005 and 2010 estimates from the American Community Survey, Minnesota saw as much as a 10 percent decline in people moving into the state. Fewer people moved here from large states such as Illinois, California and New York, and also from border states such as Iowa.

Likewise, Minnesota saw fewer people leaving for larger states where the cost of living and housing is higher. Cost might also be influencing retirement choices; while the number of Minnesotans moving to Arizona remained somewhat steady from 2005 to 2010, the number moving to Florida cut in half (11,224 in 2005 to 5,439 in 2010).

All of these figures are based on surveys and are subject to wide margins of error. But the patterns logically fit with the timing of the recession and its impact on mobility. Using related survey figures from the Current Population Survey, Census officials found that only 11.6 percent of Americans changed residences between 2010 and 2011. That figure (which includes moves within counties, to new counties, and across state lines) was the lowest since the CPS started collecting such data in 1948.

Of particular concern is the lack of state-to-state mobility among 20-somethings who recently graduated from college, said William Frey, a demographics expert from the Brookings Institution. The recession impacted their abilities to move from their parents' homes and find jobs, he said. "It's college graduates who fuel our economy ... They're the ones that follow the jobs."

Illinois has been a top exporter, so to speak, to Minnesota for years. But the number of people (older than one) moving here from Illinois dropped from an estimated 11,199 in 2005 to 6,641 in 2010, according to ACS data.

Minnesota continues to trade evenly with Wisconsin; the state sends 15,000 to 17,000 people across the border each year, only to see the same number of Cheeseheads move here. But the trends have changed substantially when it comes to other border states where the cost of living and housing tends to be lower.

The number of Minnesotans moving to Iowa increased from 5,086 in 2005 to 7,564 in 2010. The number moving to South Dakota increased from 3,291 to 4,615. Those numbers could be explained merely by the margins of error in the surveys. But this one cannot: the number of Minnesotans who moved to North Dakota increased from 5,751 in 2005 to 12,350 in 2010.