The vivid, heartbreaking images from this week’s Los Angeles wildfires called urgent attention to California’s longtime decline.

But this time, those affected by its bad policies and bad governance include a demographic rarely touched by them: the rich.

Over the last several years, California’s net out-migration numbers set records.

An astounding 343,000 more people left the Golden State than moved to it in 2022, the highest net loss of any state, and 2023 was almost as bad, with a net loss of 268,100. 

But the wealthy of California largely stayed put.