I don't think an increasing number of people relocating to RI is mutually exclusive with an overall decline in population, though. Higher-income people have been moving here during the pandemic because now they can. I was already here, but I'm part of this trend. In 2021 I took a Boston-area job I never would have considered two years earlier because I was only going to be expected to come into the office every other week or so. If I had to commute every day, no way. That job, in turn, enabled me to pay way more for a house than I would have been able to otherwise. RI is ideally situated for this kind of migration.

Meanwhile, as those people move in and housing costs balloon, people who can't get those sorts of jobs may be forced out, and in higher numbers than the people who are coming in. And that's not taking into account an aging population (we're the ninth-oldest state) and birth rates (we have the fifth lowest).