This month, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli launched a taxpayer migration dashboard showing the number of people leaving his state.To the surprise of few, New York is hemorrhaging residents, especially from its middle class.
DiNapoli put it plainly: "I remain very concerned about the net loss of married, middle-class filers, and urge policymakers to continue their efforts to improve affordability for New York's families."My own analysis of five years of nationwide IRS records — covering every move made by every American taxpayer between 2018 and 2023 — confirms what these families already know.Nurses in Queens and firefighters in Los Angeles understand better than anyone that working-class paychecks don't buy middle-class lives anymore.Yet the statistics also offer new insights into what’s happening.NEW YORK CITY LOST RESIDENTS ACROSS ALL INCOME LEVELS LAST YEAR, STUDY FINDSOver those five years, California lost more than 1.2 million people.
On balance, almost 1.7 million residents of New York, Massachusetts and Illinois also took their tax dollars, spending and income elsewhere.Florida gained more people than any other state, while Idaho, South Carolina, Delaware and Montana were other popular destinations.When I went looking for the precise reasons people moved, the usual suspects didn't quite hold up.
It wasn't the weather.It wasn’t partisan lean.
It wasn't even the cost of living, strictly speaking.States with lower taxes gained residents.So did states with freer labor markets and abundant housing.
Those with high taxes, government barriers to finding careers and excessive constraints on building homes lost people.The pattern held even after accounting for the other explanations people often reach for first.BLUE-STATE TAX BURDEN FUELS AMERICANS FLEEING TO REPUBLICAN-LED SOUTHERN STATESThis points to a lesson that blue-state lawmakers who try to manufacture affordability through government spending and mandates never seem to understand.
People ...