Question: Who still has a landline phone? Short answer: a lot of people. Sure, the tide is turning against landlines in favor of cell phones. This has been happening ever since cell phones started to become popular. Now, and thanks to Overflow Data, we have the numbers of which states have the most wireless only households. Let’s check out their findings.

Map of the States

The visualization above is essentially a map of the United States. It doesn’t show the shape of the states; instead, the states are represented by colors on a moving scale from red to blue.

The red states are the ones with less wireless only households. There is no landline “telephone” within more of those homes in the blue states.

According to Chase from Overflow Data, “An increasing number of households are making the switch to only having wireless home service. The CDC tracks this in the National Health Interview Survey and estimated that at the end of 2014, 45.4% of households only have Wireless phone service.”

A few things can be surmised by looking at the map visualization. One is that the states with fewer landlines in the middle of the country. The states on the east coast have more cell phones. States like South Dakota, Louisiana, and West Virginia are the outliers. These three states lean towards having more households with landlines.

Percentages of only Wireless Service

In this section, we’re going to talk about the states in order of wireless phone service. More specifically, we’re going to list them from most wireless only to least wireless only. We’ll also include the standard error percentage that was found during the study. Let’s get started!

• Arkansas – 56.2%; SE – 2.2%
• Idaho -56.1%; SE – 2.0%
• Mississippi – 55.1%; SE – 2.2%
• Texas – 54.6%; SE – 1.1%
• Utah – 52.2%; SE – 2.0%
• Wyoming – 51.8%; SE – 1.3%
• Kansas – 51.6%; SE – 1.9%
• Missouri – 51.5%; SE – 2.1%
• Iowa – 50.7%; SE – 1.7%
• Colorado – 50.5%; SE – 1.9%
• Oklahoma – 50.4%; SE – 1.9%
• District of Columbia – 49.7%; SE – 2.2%
• South Carolina – 49.5%; SE – 2.1%
• Arizona – 49.4%; SE – 2.1%
• Nevada – 48.4%; SE – 2.0%
• Washington – 48.3%; SE – 1.9%
• Michigan – 47.8%; SE – 1.7%
• Indiana – 47.7%; SE – 2.0%
• Florida – 47.6%; SE – 1.3%
• Kentucky – 47.1%; SE – 2.0%
• New Mexico – 47.0%; SE – 2.3%
• Oregon – 47.0%; SE – 1.9%
• Tennessee – 46.6%; SE – 1.9%
• Wisconsin – 46.6%; SE – 1.9%
• Nebraska – 46.5%; SE – 1.9%
• Georgia – 45.9%; SE – 1.7%
• Ohio – 45.8%; SE – 1.6%
• Illinois – 45.7%; SE – 1.5%
• North Dakota – 43.6%; SE – 1.9%
• Alabama – 43.4%; SE – 2.3%
• Minnesota – 43.1%; SE – 1.9%
• North Carolina – 42.9%; SE – 1.7%
• California – 42.8%; SE – 0.9%
• South Dakota – 41.4%; SE – 2.0%
• Virginia – 41.1%; SE – 1.9%
• Montana – 41.0%; SE – 2.4%
• Louisiana – 40.9%; SE – 2.2%
• Maine – 40.8%; SE – 2.2%
• Alaska – 39.7%; SE – 2.2%
• Hawaii – 38.3%; SE – 1.8%
• Vermont – 37.2%; SE – 1.9%
• West Virginia – 37.2%; SE – 2.2%
• Maryland – 36.2%; SE – 1.9%
• Rhode Island – 34.6%; SE – 2.0%
• Massachusetts – 31.5%; SE – 1.8%
• New Hampshire – 31.2%; SE – 1.5%
• New York – 31.1%; SE – 1.1%
• Pennsylvania – 30.0%; SE – 1.4%
• Delaware – 29.4%; SE – 1.9%
• Connecticut – 26.7%; SE – 1.7%
• New Jersey – 25.1%; SE – 1.5%

Here are the top 5 states with households having more wireless only phone service: Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, Texas, and Utah. And here are the 5 states with households having less wireless service: New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Hampshire.

Landline and Wireless Phone Facts

According to Statista, 2015 was the year which half of all households had a landline and half had a cell phone only. This may come as a surprise to many people because 2015 was only a few years ago. Cell phones have taken over as the more popular choice. Landlines will likely never recover.

Do you know of anyone with a landline telephone? It’s a question still asked on my official forms that you would fill out at places like a doctors office. Landline

Felix Richter of Statista writes, “In 2004, more than 90 percent of households in the U.S. had an operational landline phone – now it’s little more than 40 percent. That’s according to data provided by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, which has been tracking phone ownership in the U.S. as a by-product of its biannual National Health Interview Survey since 2004.”

The percentage of households with a landline was 41.7% in 2018. By the time you’re reading this, that number is like 40% or below. Within the next decade, if the trend keeps its pace, we imagine there will only be around 20% of households with a landline.

Featured photo by Monoar Rahman Rony on Pixabay

Have you ever wondered which cities are up-and-coming and trending? New York, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles are the largest major cities in America; however, a couple of these cities—specifically, New York, and Chicago—have a net negative population migration. NerdWallet was able to compile the internal migration data for the entire country. Some of the data, such as with New York and Chicago, may surprise you.

In this article, we’re going to talk about where people are moving from and moving to. We’ll even get into average and owning costs within the cities these people are moving from and moving to. Finally, we’ll detail the methodology that NerdWallet used to put together their information.

Featured Data and Information

Let’s start with the big winners when it comes to population moves: Tampa and Phoenix. These two cities have gone from large to major cities, partly because of the massive influx of new residents. Elizabeth Renter of NerdWallet writes, “the Tampa, Florida, and Phoenix metro areas had the highest share of out-of-state newcomers who were homeowners (41%), compared with an average of 32% among all metros analyzed”.

Tampa has a yearly net migration of 48,905. 147,503 are newcomers to the city and 98,598 people move away, on average. Phoenix, on the other hand, has a yearly net migration of 88,942. 219,938 are newcomers to the city and 130,996 people move away, on average. Clearly, there’s more movement in and out of Phoenix but Tampa has plenty of action as well.

Renting and Owning

The total cost to rent or own is an important factor in choosing to move to a certain area. What’s even more important, however, is the percentage of income needed to rent or own.

Elizabeth Renter writes, “Homeowners with a mortgage spent 18-22% of their household income on ownership costs in most of the metros examined while renters spent 30-33%. In all of the metros analyzed, the median homeowner income was more than twice the median renter income.”

If this were the only data needed, it’s clearly a better decision to own rather than rent. After all, why would someone pay 30-33% of their income on housing when they would only have to pay 18-22%?

Let’s examine some major cities where owning and renting costs the least as a percentage of total income. We can start with the Charlotte Metropolitan Area. Here it costs an average of 18% to own and an average of 29% to rent as a percentage of income. What about the St. Louis area? Here, it costs an average of 18% to own and an average of 30% to rent as a percentage of income. The Minneapolis area is another major city where people are getting their bang for their buck. There, it costs an average of 19% to own and an average of 29% to rent as a percentage of income.

Methodology in Obtaining Data

NerdWallet was able to create a table and a map based on the data they used. The data actually comes from more than one source. Information from the Home Buyer survey, the American Community Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the U.S. Census Bureau was used.

Elizabeth Renter writes, “NerdWallet’s Home Buyer survey was conducted online within the U.S. among 2,029 U.S. adults ages 18 and older by The Harris Poll from Jan. 16-18, 2019. Migration data comes from the 2012-2016 American Community Survey five-year estimates and approximates the number of people who moved for any one-year period within that period. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, monthly housing costs for homeowners include all mortgage, home equity loan, real estate taxes, insurance, utility and fuel payments.”

NerdWallet, therefore, used four sources to put together their comprehensive housing and migration analysis.

Lastly, let’s take a look at NerdWallet’s interactive migration map. The following major cities are included:

• Atlanta
• Baltimore
• Boston
• Charlotte
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Denver
• Detroit
• Houston
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Minneapolis
• New York City
• Orlando
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• Portland
• Riverside
• San Antonio
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• St. Louis
• Tampa
• Washington, D.C.

Featured photo by Gordon Johnson on Pixabay

U.S. Migration map is embedded from Nerd Wallet