New York has lost a weighty proportion of its millionaires in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic, new data from the Internal Revenue Service shows.
Statistics reviewed by EJ McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy will likely ramp up the ongoing debate about New York’s relative tax unfriendly status, particularly as it pertains to high-income individuals.
McMahon claimed the data showed a 1.3 percent decline in the number of New Yorkers with adjusted gross annual income of more than $1million.
It comes as woke states such as New York and California see a mass exodus amid surging house prices and rampaging crime.
New York state is shedding million-dollar earners as one-time Empire state residents flee to more tax-friendly environments
NYC Mayor Eric Adams has said he would like to keep the top earners in the Big Apple, but has not proposed any policies that would offer an incentive for them to stay
The precise figure fell from 54,370 to 55,100 – 730 individuals, while the national number climbed from 554,340 to 608,549 – a nearly 10 percent jump.
Taxes are likely not the only reason wealthy New Yorkers fled the empire state during COVID, but it is at least a formidable one and not something that should be ignored by the state government, said McMahon.
‘It’s preposterous to deny that it isn’t one of the key determinants,’ he told the Union-Sun & Journal. ‘And it’s the variable that the state government controls.’
In 2010, he said, New York state had 12.7 percent of the nation’s income millionaires.
That was the year elected officials the infamous millionaire’s tax, which was supposed to be a temporary higher tax rate on those making more than one million dollars.
Those taxes only went up during the years when Andrew Cuomo governed the state, and have not been lowered since his administration came to an abrupt end driven by a report about Cuomo’s pattern of sexually harassing the women in his orbit.
By 2019, the state’s share of million-dollar earners had dipped below 10 percent and fell against in 2020 to 8.9 percent.
This $150million Hamptons residence has been on the market for years without selling – the owner says she prefers to summer outside of New York
These stunning properties are precisely where a million dollar earners may live with their families before opting to leave for better tax environments
Fewer top earners in New York state mean more unfilled $250 million penthouse apartments in Manhattan – like this one in the iconic Central Park Tower
One Democratic leader, however, who says he is trying to keep the country’s wealthy in New York, is Mayor Eric Adams.
At a recent breakfast of corporate leaders, Adams said he was tired of the ‘tax the rich’ policies favored by the progressive wing of his party.
‘It blows my mind when I hear, ‘So what if they leave?’ No, you leave!’ he thundered. ‘I want my high income earners right here.’
Adams has not, at this time, proposed a plan to lower taxes on wealthy – or any – New Yorkers.
According to new Census Bureau data, New York experienced the largest population decline of any US state this year – losing 0.9 percent of its residents.
Tax and crime-heavy California also shed hundreds of thousands of residents.
The Cuomo administration supported and continued the so-called millionaire’s tax, that furthered the state’s fiscal reliance upon taxing top-earners top amounts
The grand larceny crisis has become so bad that Mayor Eric Adams held a summit with business leaders at Gracie Mansion earlier this month
New York and California have each lost more than half a million people since 2020
Manhattan’s tourist-packed neighborhoods have increasingly become hotbeds for crime – where brazen thieves are leaving shopkeepers feeling powerless
Since April of 2020, New York has, on net, lost half a million people. Its current population was recorded as 19,677,151, making it the fourth most populous state after California, Texas and Florida.
In California, where once-a-year massive wildfires and treacherous mudslides threaten homes, the population has also dipped by slightly more than 508,000 since 2020.
Deputy director of external affairs at the California Department of Finance, H.D. Palmer, told the Sacramento Bee that the shrinking population of the Golden State is a reflection of its ongoing housing affordability crisis.
‘If you talk to demographers, they’ll say that one of the factors is the cost of housing. And that’s continued to be a challenging issue for the state,’ he said.
According to the Bee, in Sacramento – where the median household income in 2021 was $71,047 – it requires a household salary of around $145,000 to afford the median-priced house in the region.
In New York, where crime and rents are surging, the mass exodus continues.
Rent prices in Manhattan reached unfathomable new heights in 2022, forcing many concrete-jungle reidents to hand over egregious sums each month for less than lavish digs
Crime in New York has increased dramatically since 2020, as homelessness spikes and the city continues to be governed by bail laws that allow criminals out of custody shortly after arrest
In January of 2020, New York State introduced sweeping criminal justice legislation that eliminated cash bail for the majority of misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, including robberies.
New York, where the average rent is now more than $5,200 a month, lost more residents than any other state between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021, many of whom fled a staunch set of pandemic restrictions and high taxes for friendlier business environments, according to MarketWatch.
America’s population grew by 0.4 percent – but it’s not due solely to more births than deaths.
‘There was a sizeable uptick in population growth last year compared to the prior year’s historically low increase,’ Kristie Wilder, a demographer with the Census Bureau, said.
‘A rebound in net international migration, coupled with the largest year-over-year increase in total births since 2007, is behind this increase,’ she added.
Florida and Texas continue to see the most population growth of any US states.
The Lone Star state has gained close to 900,000 new Texans since 2020 and Florida has just over 700,000 new official residents – a population increase of nearly 2 percent.
Texas crossed the 30-million-population threshold in 2022 and as such has joined California as the only state with a resident population of more than 30 million.
Wilder noted that while Florida ‘has often been among the largest-gaining states, this was the first time since 1957 that Florida has been the state with the largest percent increase in population.’
Crime in Manhattan surged 23.5 percent in 2022 as robberies, rapes and felony assaults all climbed – though murders and shootings both decreased by double digits.
Grand larceny – or thefts of more than $1,000 – spiked by more than 60 percent in New York City this year.
The issue has become so significant that Mayor Eric Adams held a meeting with business leaders at Gracie Mansion earlier this month to address it – though a solution remains far from reachable as the city heads into the New Year.
