If it seems like a lot of people have been moving out of expensive blue states and packing their things for more conservative lands, it’s not your imagination. There has been a steady stream of interstate migration taking place for the last couple of years. But how many people are we really talking about? We’ve typically had to rely on data coming from new car registrations or reports from moving companies. But there’s another figure that probably paints a more accurate picture. You can get a good idea of how many people are in any given state based on that state’s tax revenue and what direction it’s heading in. When tax revenues begin to fall, people are leaving. And the two states that have lost the most combined tax revenue are California and New York. Between them, they lost more than half a billion dollars in revenue. And where did all of that money go? The lion’s share showed up in Florida and Texas. (Daily Mail)

California and New York have lost a combined $640m in tax revenue due to people moving out-of-state, as conservative Florida and Texas see boosts of $23 billion after an influx of movers.

The two states currently top the table with the largest net negative tax income migration, with The Golden State taking the top spot.

In total, California has seen $343 million leave the state, while New York is just under $300 million.

The top five losers in this race didn’t include any red states. After California and New York, which lost $343 and $300 million respectively, the list was rounded out by Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. They saw drains of 141, 135, and 129 million.

This is what you could call a case of people voting with their feet, but also their wallets. When a state loses more than a quarter billion dollars in revenue that rapidly, the pot shrinks considerably in terms of meeting its basic obligations, to say nothing of “special” costs for things like reparations. California and New York in particular are experiencing self-inflicted wounds. They kept increasing taxes while passing laws that lowered levels of safety and standards of living. More crime on top of having less money in your pocket is a guaranteed formula that will make people start eyeing the exits.

Further down in the report, we learn that New York suffered significant losses in one particular demographic. That would be millionaires. More than 1,400 people earning more than $25 million fled the state last year. That’s nearly as many as left during the pandemic. And some of the very high-profile people who departed publicly cited the tax rates in New York as their primary reason.

In other words, the people who were formerly paying the most tax revenue into the state’s coffers headed south and they took their cash with them. This is an equation that can quickly become unsustainable. When your high earners depart and leave behind those who relay on government services to survive, the amount and quality of those services are going to decline. It’s inevitable and it’s not a political calculation. It’s just math. The states don’t have the luxury of just printing more magical money when they run low the way the federal government does.

Meanwhile, Florida has seen a net positive income migration of $12.4 billion. (With a “b.”) And Florida’s unemployment rate is currently hovering at 2.6 percent. People are moving to Florida and going to work, adding more money to the state’s economic ecosystem. Texas is reaping similar benefits, as are several other red states. I’ve long since given up hope that the Democrats in these blue state governments will wake up, smell the coffee, and make some changes. But will the voters ever catch on and realize that they are feeding into their own problems by electing the same clown car occupants over and over again? If not, it’s hard to have much sympathy for them.