Last year the exodus out of the high-tax, high-crime Democratic strongholds of California, New York and Illinois continued, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.

In 2022, 343,000 people left the Golden State, while 299,557 left New York, and 141,656 left Illinois, Bloomberg reports.

And which states saw the most new residents? Florida and Texas – home to low taxes and warm weather, followed by North Carolina and South Carolina.

Florida saw an influx of 318,855 people, while Texas saw 230,961 new residents. And it’s not just for the weather and the taxes…

“Everybody knows about the low taxes and great weather in these areas, but something else that makes these areas popular is the robust job market recovery after the pandemic,” said NAR Director of Real Estate Research, Nadia Evangelou. “Not only were their economies able to recover all the jobs that were lost, but there are 5% more jobs now than there were in 2020.”

Of course, once these states flip blue thanks to the influx of coastal Democrats, the tax advantages and low crime will undoubtedly evaporate.

Moving on the decline

According to the Brookings Institution, the long-term trend of migration is slowing down, CBS News reports.

For instance, from 2021 to 2022, about 9% of Americans moved, ranging from local to long-range moves. 

That’s far lower than the roughly 20% of Americans who moved each year from the 1940s to 1960s — decades when more households were single-earner homes, making it easier to pick up and relocate versus double-earner households today.

That said, longer-distance moves have picked up in recent years, as Americans find employment in different parts of the country.

“This population shift paints a clear picture: People left high-tax, high-cost states for lower-tax, lower-cost alternatives,” wrote policy analyst Janelle Fritts in a blog post earlier this month.

Notably, people who leave New York typically save 15x more from lower housing costs than from tax savings, an analysis from the Fiscal Policy Institute found.

“Of the top twenty largest county-to-county flows out of New York State, median housing costs were substantially lower in the destination county,” reads the report. “On average, annual mortgage costs for median-priced homes are $18,300 lower in destination counties — a savings of 34% — than in New York origin counties.”

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