New York State is losing more residents than any other state in the country, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released early today.

Based on surveys taken between 2000 and 2004, the figures show that New York replaced California as the net migration outflow leader, with an average of 182,886 people leaving a year, nearly double California’s average for the same period. California led the nation between 1990 and 2000.

The findings track the state-to-state movement in America. They do not include international immigration numbers.

The New York City metropolitan region – which includes Long Island and parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania – also leads the country in migration outflow, with an average of 211,014 leaving a year. The number is higher than the state figure because many of those leaving the metropolitan region resettle in other areas of New York.

Despite the tremendous outflow, the overall city population, at 8.2 million, is growing due to increases in international immigration and a birthrate that is greater than the death rate.

Still, some experts said the domestic migration deficit is a cause for growing concern, and some see it as a reason for tax reform.

“Our economic rate of growth is even less now than it was in the ’90s, and that may suggest that the out-migration is likely to intensify,” a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Steven Malanga, said. “People can see very clearly how their lives are affected by slow economic growth or higher taxes.”

While New York for decades has been among the migration outflow leaders, Mr. Malanga said there was new concern about the lack of legislative action to correct what he sees as the root of the problem: taxes and a struggling economy.

“There are three reasons people are leaving: taxes, taxes, and taxes,” a Republican candidate for governor, John Faso, said. His recommended solution: “Cut taxes, reduce spending, put the state budget on a diet.”

Another Republican candidate, William Weld, also stressed the need to cut taxes. “For New York to retain its young people and talented work force, it must corral and bridle New York’s government spending, cut taxes, and reduce imposed business costs such as health care and worker’s compensation,” he said.

“These are simple changes that will provide the key to keeping our seed corn: good jobs at good wages.”

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, another candidate for governor, has been focusing on why New Yorkers are leaving in a series of economic speeches. “We must face the reality and begin to put in place a plan that addresses the realities,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer’s campaign, Christine Anderson, said. In his campaign, she said, Mr. Spitzer is stressing his commitment to solving these problems through measures including reducing property taxes, reducing health care costs, and fostering an environment in which young people remain in the state after finishing school.

Other academics and city officials said the high rate of domestic out-migration was part of a natural process in the growth of New York.

“When you look at the full picture, you see a city that is an attractive place and one of opportunity that has prompted continued strong immigration, which together with natural increase and people coming in from other states has put New York at an all-time population high,” a spokesman for the Department of City Planning, Rachaele Raynoff, said.

“I think you miss the picture if you focus exclusively on people leaving,” a professor of sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Philip Kasinitz, said. “People have always left the city in large numbers. The question is, is that more than balanced by the people who are coming in?”

The working-age immigrant influx is what has maintained New York City, Mr. Kasinitz said, crediting the trend with bringing new vitality to neighborhoods that struggled in the 1970s. “If you compare New York to places that have experienced some sort of population loss – in a place like Detroit or Milwaukee or St. Louis – you can see how communities get devastated by it,” he said.

Overall, New York fits into the larger trend of residents moving away from the Northeast and toward the Sun Belt states and other warmer areas. In the past few years, the level of out-migration from the mid-Atlantic region declined slightly, but it remained the highest in the country. The South, meanwhile, continued to be the primary destination of any region, with Florida leading the way.

The author of the report, Marc Perry, a demographer with the Census Bureau, said New Yorkers should keep an eye on trends in the Sunshine State, one of the most popular destinations for New York migrants. “It seems Florida has been very popular this decade as a domestic migration partner, averaging just under 200,000 a year,” he said.”You could sum up 20 other states and still not get that number.”

Other states that are popular with New Yorkers, and also showed large increases, were Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina, according to area moving companies. In terms of metropolitan growth, New York City also fits into a larger trend, with 18 of the country’s 25 largest metropolitan areas seeing negative out migration. Other cities with large numbers of residents leaving were Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Metropolitan areas that saw the biggest in migration numbers were Phoenix, Tampa, Fla., and Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.