Census: A historic low for Americans on the move

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are staying put more than at any time since World War II, as the housing bust and unemployment keep young adults at home and thwart older Americans' plans for a beachfront or lakeside retirement.

New information from the Census Bureau is the latest indicator of economic trouble, after earlier signs that mobility was back on the upswing. It's also a shift from America's long-standing cultural image of ever-changing frontiers, dating to the westward migration of the 1800s and more recently in the spreading out of whites, blacks and Hispanics in the Sun Belt's housing boom.

Rather than housing magnets such as Arizona, Florida and Nevada, it is now more traditional, densely populated states — California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey — that are showing some of the biggest population gains in the recent economic slump, according to the data released today.