America s Atlas Shrugged Moment Has Already Arrived, New IRS Data Show – Foundation for Economic Education

Data show that several populous blue states California, New York, and Illinois among them have been losing population and companies for years. In 2021 Forbes wrote about leftugees fleeing blue states for red ones. A few years before that, a headline in The Hill touched on the great exodus out of America’s blue cities.

New IRS data, however, show the speed with which blue states are losing taxpayers and their adjusted gross income (AGI) is increasing. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that more than 100,000 people left Illinois in 2021, taking with them some $11 billion in AGI, nearly double its 2019 total. For New York it was $24.5 billion, an increase of more than 150 percent from 2019. California, meanwhile, saw its AGI loss ($29 billion) more than triple since 2019.

That people are migrating from these states is important. But who is migrating is equally important, and the data paint a bleak picture for these states. Taxpayers giving up on the Prairie State and the Empire State made about $35,000 more per year than new arrivals. For Florida, the data are even more stark. The average income for a new arrival to the Sunshine State was roughly $150,000 more than double those leaving.

via fee.org

Cali is such a beautiful state — that’s what so annoying about its political capture by the near worst in US politics. Today, for example, it’s a lovely 68 degrees and sunny. The ice plant is blooming. Little bunny rabbits are running around. Florida and Texas — I’d prefer their politics but the heat, the humidity, the insects! California suffers from a strange resource curse, ours in the form of the tech sector. State government has viewed it as a bottomless source of tax revenue. But nothing that is bottomless really is.