How the mighty have fallen. The latest Census Bureau data show the Empire State\u2019s population drain continues, as people flee New York in droves.
\nFrom July 2021 to July 2022, 300,000 more people moved out of the state than moved in. New York had the largest population loss \u2014 in both percentage and absolute terms \u2014 experienced by any state during that period.
\nSadly, this was both predictable and preventable.<\/p>\n
In March 2021, a study of New York found that its already staggeringly high tax burden had worsened due to an increase in the top marginal tax rate to almost 15% for those in\u00a0New York City. The study projected that the flood of people leaving would only accelerate \u2014 and it did.
\nEven before that study, the Empire State lost so many people that it cost New York a seat in Congress after the 2020 Census. This exodus is a direct response to New York\u2019s obscenely high taxes.
\nust how bad is it? Compared with other states, New Yorkers:
\n\u2022 Pay the highest total tax burden and highest share of personal income (14%) in taxes.
\n\u2022 Endure the second-worst overall business tax climate.
\n\u2022 Face the highest individual income tax rate and income tax collections per capita.
\n\u2022 Pay the second-highest state and local corporate income tax collections per capita.
\n\u2022 Have the fourth-highest property taxes and local sales tax rate (on average),
\n\u2022 Pay the highest cigarette taxes and ninth-highest gasoline taxes.
\n\u2022 Pay the sixth-highest capital-stock tax rate.
\n\u2022 Are tied for third-highest estate tax rate.
\nAnd what do New Yorkers get for all these taxes? Roads smooth as glass? The best airports in the world? Trains running on time? Bulletproof electric grid and water infrastructure? Ample police to maintain safety and order?
\nNot even close.
\nInstead, New York City residents face some of the highest crime rates in the world, thanks to soft-on-crime policies from liberal politicians. And people everywhere across the state are threatened by a looming municipal debt crisis. Notwithstanding its sky\u2019s-the-limit tax policies, New York has accumulated the highest state and local debt per capita in the nation.
\nAnd the future is not bright. When people flee the state, they take their jobs and money with them. That hamstrings future revenue collection for a state that has never learned to spend within its means. But the days of being rescued by tycoons like J.P. Morgan are long gone. Absent a federal bailout, both New York state and New York City are on a collision course with first grade mathematics \u2014 and bankruptcy.
\nSadly, too many New York politicians seem to have learned nothing from their repeated failures and instead are pursuing more of the same, reminiscent of the famous maxim about insanity. The Empire State\u2019s tax on gasoline just rose 16 cents per gallon on Jan. 1 \u2014 an apropos way for the nation\u2019s highest-tax state to ring in the new year.<\/p>\n