Another article in the LAT about the out-migration, and the current $68 billion budget deficit. If politicians raise taxes to compensate, could it drive more people away? And cause a surge in inventory? An excerpt:
In 2021 and 2022, about 750,000 more people left the state than moved in, according to recently released Census Bureau data. That was about as many as the total net loss of residents for all five years before the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
But it’s not just the sheer numbers of people who have left. What’s different is that in each of the prior two years, more than 250,000 Californians with at least a bachelor’s degree moved out, while an average of 175,000 college graduates from other states settled in California, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
In prior periods over the last two decades, that balance was about even or slightly in California’s favor, even though the state consistently lost many more residents overall to other states than it gained from them. The recent out-migration has been particularly pronounced among Californians with graduate and professional degrees.
California is heavily dependent on high earners to meet government fiscal needs. Tax filers in the top 1% of income, earning around $1 million and above, have typically accounted for 40% to 45% of the state’s total personal income tax revenue, said Brian Uhler, deputy legislative analyst at California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which estimated the $68-billion budget deficit.
But it’s not just the super rich such as Elon Musk, who moved from California to Texas in 2020 and brought his company Tesla with him a year later, or movie star Mark Wahlberg, who left Los Angeles for Vegas last year. There’s been a broader exodus of ordinary Californians in the upper-income spectrum as well.
In the tax filing years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000. That was up from $75,000 in 2015 and 2016, according to migration and personal income data from the Internal Revenue Service.
IRS and other data show that Texas has long been, by far, the top destination for Californians. And in the years 2015-16, an individual or couple who had moved from California to Texas reported an average income of $78,000, about the same as Texans who relocated to California. But by 2020-2021, California transplants in Texas reported an average income of about $137,000, while tax returns from former Texans who moved to California showed an average income of $75,000.
The income gap between those coming into California and those going out is even bigger when it comes to Florida, which, as far away as it is, has become a top five destination for emigrating Californians. Statistics show more older Californians are likely to move there. Florida, like Texas and Nevada and Tennessee, another more recent hot spot for Californians, doesn’t have a personal income tax.
In California, the top tax rate for personal income is 12.3%.
“They’re saying, ‘Hey, I’m working hard and the income tax is just killing me,” said Todd Litman, a longtime estate planning attorney in Tustin.
These days, Litman says he’s hearing from four to five clients every month who want to leave California, up from just one a month a few years ago. Many of his clients have $1 million or more in their retirement accounts, he said, and don’t want the extra tax burden when they make withdrawals.
But that’s not all. California’s pricey housing market is likely to keep driving more Californians elsewhere. Although trending lower in recent months, the median price of a single-family house in the state in October 2023 was $840,360, up 46% from the start of 2020, according to the California Assn. of Realtors.
Moody’s Analytics economist Mark Zandi analyzed moves in and out of California for The Times using Equifax credit data, to zero in on the age of the movers. He found that since the pandemic in early 2020, California has lost residents in every age group, but by a significant margin the biggest net out-migration came from those 35 to 44 years old.
“This is probably motivated by the severe housing affordability crisis in California,” Zandi said. “It’s all but impossible for them to become homeowners in the state.”
Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, who has written about demographic trends in migration, thinks the increased loss of higher-educated Californians to other states in recent years can be traced in significant part to the rise of remote work since the pandemic. As more employers call workers back to the office, and the share of fully remote work appears to have settled at around 10% of all employees, McGhee expects the net out-migration from California to slow.
Read the full article here:
From Rob Dawg:
It isn’t just the brutal taxes but the fact that we get so little from those brutal taxes.
Schools lag. Roads in disrepair. The common perception of unequal treatment on so many levels creates resentment.
And those high taxes? Just the start.
High home insurance due to bad forest management and high auto insurance due to lax law enforcement. Then the hidden carbon taxes that aren’t even counted as taxes but show up in energy costs. And the cost of humanely treated chickens and hogs? Even California’s milk is “special” meaning it costs more. There are compensations. For instance the California Constitution forbids the charging of tuition to all state colleges and universities.