How many people have fled the Newsom regime?

California’s population dropped by more than 500,000 in the two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The newspaper noted that the number of California residents who left from April 2020 to July 2022 exceeds the number of people who moved in by almost 700,000, according to census data, which also shows that California’s population decline was just behind New York, which lost about 15,000 more people during that time.

Paul Ong, director of the University of California Los Angeles’ Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, told the Times that while economic, health, and sociopolitical factors have pushed people to leave, one major reason is high housing prices.

[Ahem. Housing prices fall under the economic and sociopolitical factors categories, too. California’s regulations and zoning restrict expansion of residential construction, especially in relation to environmentalism. The overwhelming regulatory burden for small businesses also prevents people from creating the kind of economic growth necessary to keep up. As a result, the state’s economics have become far more stratified, with the middle class escaping for greener — and freer — pastures. — Ed]