During 2021, nine states lost more than $1.5 billion in income as people and their incomes moved away. Not surprisingly, the three biggest losers — California, New York, and Illinois — are run by Democrats. Those three states alone accounted for half the nine states’ net income loss that year.
The biggest gainers, not surprisingly, were mostly run by Republicans, who treat income earners with respect rather than as chickens to be plucked. According to the latest study by MyElisting.com, nine states reaped the rewards of treating high income earners with respect, the top three being Florida, Texas, and Arizona.
The numbers are staggering. While the worst nine were suffering, the best nine gained an eye-popping $76 billion in “net positive inflow of wealth,” according to MyElisting.
The authors attributed the loss from Democrat-run blue states to Republican-run red states to a simple rule either being followed or ignored: Money and capital goes where it is treated best.
The usual reasons were stated: The gainers either had no state income taxes, or lower income taxes. The losers led the parade of taxing the wealthy the most. Said the study:
California ranks first among states experiencing the worst net negative tax income migration. With a staggering net loss of $343.2 million, the Golden State is witnessing an outflow of high-income earners.
Despite its numerous attractions … California’s high personal income tax rates seem discouraging for many high-wealth individuals. This, coupled with the state’s high cost of living … likely fuel[s] wealth migration out of California.
The study mentions nothing about the homelessness crisis, the soaring crime rate, or the risk to the personal safety of citizens just doing their shopping in downtown Los Angeles or San Francisco. Nothing was said about the state’s propensity to regulate small companies out of business or its draconian Covid lockdown policies that virtually halted the economy in 2021.
It didn’t mention the nearly 700,000 actual income-earning individuals who departed the Golden State for warmer, friendly, safer, and lower-cost states in the 30 months from January 2020 through June 2022.
The MyElisting report fails to mention a recent study showing that 40 percent of Californians would like to leave the state if they could, with a third of them stating the reason why: left-wing politics destroying the state they used to love.
The study does state that New York is suffering from the same policies and risks, that it is “in many ways a mirror image of California. In fact, in certain ways [New York] is even worse than its West Coast counterpart.” It imposes the most burdensome taxes on its residents compared to all the other states in the union.
On the positive side, the beneficiaries of this vast mismanagement have benefited the Sunshine State and the Lone Star State handsomely. Last year more than 319,000 Americans moved to Florida, pushing its net-positive increase in tax revenue by more than $12 billion. Texas came in second, with a gain of $10.7 billion in new revenue.
As California’s and New York’s tax bases shrink, so does their political clout, with the outmigration costing them seats in the House of Representatives.
Which raises the question: Will those leaving those high-tax, high-cost, high-crime, far-left liberal policy states bring with them the same destructive political ideologies that forced them to leave in the first place? Or will the transition from citizens as taxpayers to citizens as wealth generators also transform their ideologies?
