If you define insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then New York politicians belong in an asylum.
After the passage of yet another tax increase in 2021, we published a study in which CTUP senior fellow E.J. Antoni and Steve Moore estimated that the higher taxes would cause more people to leave the Empire State.
Two and a half years later, the New York Post highlighted the latest Census Bureau data showing that the population drain is in full swing and in line with those estimates. In the most recent 12 months’ worth of data, 217,000 more people left the state than moved in, equivalent to 1.1% of the state’s population.
This explains the predicted loss in congressional representation for New York that the new Census population numbers are pointing to as New York shrinks.
And can you blame people – especially the wealthy who pay the majority of the state’s bills – for fleeing? Between federal, state, local, and payroll taxes, the top marginal income tax rate in New York City is almost 60%. And they’re mostly fleeing to tax havens like Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas – no surprise!
