Thread by @bopinion

🇺🇸New York, California and Illinois have been hemorrhaging residents.

Almost 3.2 million more people left those states for elsewhere in the U.S. than arrived from other states from 2010 through 2019. Where are all these people going? trib.al/HpJEZQE

👶🏼Thanks to 2 million more births than deaths and 1 million newcomers from other countries, California’s population still grew by 2 million over this period.

New York's population grew only slightly, while Illinois lost an estimated 159,751 people trib.al/HpJEZQE

🚚Here's where people are leaving New York for.

The adjusted gross income of New York taxpayers who didn’t migrate averaged $88,940, 2012-2018.

Those who left for Florida, New Jersey, California and Connecticut made more money than that trib.al/HpJEZQE

Of those who left New York state from 2011 to 2012, 49.1% were from the city. From 2017 to 2018, 68.4% were.

That’s important for congressional redistricting trib.al/h5SlgfT

🚚 Here’s where Californians are moving.

The adjusted gross income of California taxpayers who didn’t migrate averaged $84,641, and migrants to all of the top-10 states made less than that trib.al/HpJEZQE

Also notable for California is that it experienced inflows from about half the states, including New York and Illinois.

It’s losing residents in huge numbers to nearby states, but still attracting people from the Northeast and Midwest trib.al/HpJEZQE

🚚 Illinois has been losing:

➡️High-income residents to Florida
➡️Middle-income to the South and West
➡️Low-income to neighboring states trib.al/HpJEZQE

Is it a blue-state, high-tax problem?

Income-tax-free Florida is sure attracting a lot of people from Illinois and New York, but it’s not the whole story trib.al/HpJEZQE

Illinois, California and New York all saw taxpayers with incomes below $50,000 overrepresented among the leavers.

That suggests a different set of governance failures, such as:

🏘High housing costs
🛣Long commutes
💼Few job opportunities trib.al/HpJEZQE