New Yorkers Flee For Greener Pastures

The fact that people are steadily moving away from blue states and into red states is well known. Still, I thought these figures from New York were shocking:

A new city analysis shows that a huge chunk of high-income earners fled in 2020. …

The study by the city’s Independent Budget Office shows a 10% plunge in taxpayers who made over $750,000, and 6% of those with incomes between $150,000 and $750,000.

That is stunning: 10 percent of New York City’s highest income earners fled the state in a single year, as did 6 percent of those with moderately high incomes. In one year! New York’s tax policies are obviously not sustainable. Sure, the 2020 exodus was covid-driven in part, but is there any chance that many of these tax refugees will return? No.

How do liberals react to the fact that their tax base is walking away?

[T]he radicals who increasingly dominate local politics want to slam those who haven’t left even more: Last Monday, a group of advocates and elected officials launched a campaign for a ludicrous $40 billion in new taxes on the rich.

New York can hardly afford to drive away even more high-income taxpayers:

[T]he top 1% of taxpayers accounted for 45% of the city’s total income tax liability in 2020; they’re the ones most sensitive to high taxes. (The bottom 50% accounted for less than 4%.)

That pattern holds everywhere: the “rich” pay taxes for the rest of us. And the 2020 numbers, bad as they are, are probably a harbinger of worse to come:

[T]he mass exodus came before progressives in Albany spiked state taxes by $4 billion in 2021, punishing mostly top-income New Yorkers with the highest state and local tax rate in the nation. How many more high earners have left since, or will soon?

So, yeah, bring on those new taxes. There are still some lots for sale in Florida.

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