Americans ‘Vote With Their Feet’ Away From California

One of the most startling trends in the United States today is the migration from high tax states to low or no-tax states.

I have covered California’s out-migration for many years, but have never seen it as serious as it is today.

California made the top of Allied Van Lines Company 2024 Allied US Migration Report – and unfortunately once again is for outbound migration – we are losing residents to other states, and not replenishing them with inbound migrants.

Just last week we reported on The Gavin Newsom Effect: U-Haul Reports Californians Leaving in Droves. U-Haul’s January report showed that more Californians rented one-way U-Haul trucks to leave the state in 2024, than residents of any other state.

In 2023 we reported California Loses Nearly 700,000 Residents Since 2020 – since Gavin Newsom has been governor.

But this California downward trend has legs, and goes back many years.

In 2011, I reported:

A California delegation visiting Texas legislators and Gov. Rick Perry are meeting with former California businesses now located in Texas. In a meeting with the Governor, California Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda), organizer of the trip, said that businesses risked uprooting families along with the business, to move to Texas where they can compete nationally and globally, at a lower cost. “Last year California lost 1.2 million jobs while Texas created 163,000 new jobs,” said Logue.

“There’s a saying amongst business people,” said Logue, “ABC – anywhere but California.” And the reason for the trip said Logue, “is that in order to fix our budget and economy, California must address how to create jobs.”

However, and unfortunately, too many of those businesses were exiting California. Even in 2011, Texas was the top destination for departing California companies. Experts at Site Selection magazine awarded Texas the 2010 Governor’s Cup for most new and expanded corporate facilities. Texas had the nation’s top ranking with 424 projects while California ranked 15th with 127 projects.”

Even in 2010, Chief Executive magazine called California “the Venezuela of North America.” In the “Best and Worst States For Business 2010” issue, Chief Executive magazine reported, ‘“Texas is pro-business with reasonable regulations,” one CEO respondent remarked, “while California is anti-business with anti-business regulations.” Another CEO commented, “California is terrible. Even when we’ve paid their high taxes in full, they still treat every conversation as adversarial. It’s the most difficult state in the nation. We have actually walked away from business rather than deal with the government in Sacramento.”’

Deja vu, isn’t it?

Then and now, some of the reasons businesses leave California are:

Energy costs
High and unfair tax treatment
Regulatory burden
Unfriendly legal environment for business
Most expensive place to do business
Provable savings elsewhere
Public policies and taxes create unfriendly business climate
Uncontrollable public spending
More adversarial toward business than any other state
Poor rankings for California on lists ranging from taxes to crime rates to school dropout rates.

Former Trump Economic Advisor and Unleash Prosperity Founder Steve Moore,  through his Unleash Prosperity group, just unveiled a new interactive report showing significant population and wealth loss in California, part of a growing trend of Americans — and their money — fleeing high-tax, heavily regulated states in search of affordability and economic freedom.

The new “Vote With Your Feet,” a first-of-its-kind visual mapping project, which focuses specifically on California and tracks where its residents are relocating, using the latest available data from the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Census Bureau.

Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark.

At the meeting and unveiling, Moore explained how the Northeast used to be the economic power for the country. But, approximately two years ago that shifted – the Southeast is now the domestic production powerhouse for the United States.

The states which used to be considered backwater states, are the economic powerhouse of the nation, Moore said.

And, as with California losing residents to lower tax states, the Northeast is losing population to Arkansas and Alabama, said Moore.

His new website, Vote With Your Feet, has an interactive US map showing how much population left one state to move to another. We clicked on California residents moving to Florida:

Holy smokes – not only did California lose 68,449 residents to Florida, those people took $11,703,535,000 personal income migration (aggregated gross income) with them. And this is just through 2022.

California lost significantly more residents and income to Texas.

California lost 361,623 residents and $20,915,598,000 income to Texas.

California lost 74,978 residents and $4,499,306,000 in income to Tennessee. 

California lost 120,415 residents and $6,532,771,000 in income to Idaho. 

California even lost 146,280 residents and $9,244,815,000 in income to Washington State, which has no income tax. 

As Steve Moore noted, California and New York have suffered the biggest losses. “How do you screw up California?” Moore asked. “It’s beautiful. But for the first time in history, California is losing people after years and years of bad policies.”

“The coasts are not doing well,” he added.

The Top 10 States Which Gained the Most People:

Number	State	Net Domestic Migration Gain
1	Florida	1,591,626
2	Texas	1,268,227
3	North Carolina	520,615
4	Arizona	483,368
5	South Carolina	459,395
6	Tennessee	350,483
7	Georgia	337,752
8	Nevada	245,866
9	Washington	217,304
10	Idaho	197,567

The States Which Lost the Most People:

Number	State	Net Domestic Migration Loss
1	New York	-1,757,720
2	California	-1,632,774
3	Illinois	-881,012
4	New Jersey	-350,111
5	Massachusetts	-283,838
6	Pennsylvania	-181,662
7	Maryland	-179,490
8	Louisiana	-171,327
9	Virginia	-120,209
10	Connecticut	-117,465

Which States Lost the Most Money?

Number	State	Money (Personal Income) Lost
1	New York	$-111,054,132,000
2	California	$-102,446,753,000
3	Illinois	$-63,478,115,000
4	New Jersey	$-30,997,699,000
5	Massachusetts	$-19,486,924,000
6	Maryland	$-17,402,499,000
7	Pennsylvania	$-16,509,051,000
8	Ohio	$-15,283,959,000
9	Virginia	$-14,054,141,000
10	Connecticut	$-12,623,100,000

Which States Gained the Most Money?

Number	State	Money (Personal Income) Gained
1	Florida	$195,559,163,000
2	Texas	$54,467,206,000
3	Arizona	$29,750,088,000
4	North Carolina	$28,308,313,000
5	South Carolina	$27,572,690,000
6	Nevada	$21,599,692,000
7	Tennessee	$19,756,511,000
8	Colorado	$17,090,461,000
9	Idaho	$11,119,254,000
10	Washington	$10,970,192,000

The charts clearly show that the states losing the most people are also states with the highest income taxes. California has the highest income tax rate of 13.3%. Hawaii is at 11% and New York is at 10.9%, plus a nearly 4% tax in New York City.

Nine states in the U.S. have no income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Lastly, Steve Moore warns that if as one Mayoral candidate is proposing to tax the rich in New York City, “You will lose Wall Street.”

Here is a quick video of the new Vote With Your Feet website:

Special guest Virginia Governor Glen Younkin, also spoke at the event specifically about Virginia’s recovery and economic growth since his election in 2022. “If you are shrinking you are running a deficit,” Younkin. said of states losing population like California, New York and Illinois. “If you are growing, you have a surplus.”

Younkin said states that are losing residents and running deficits raise taxes, only leading to more outbound migration.

“These are winner states and loser states.”

Younkin noted that Virginia went from #40 in growth to #9 under his leadership. His secret? Tax cuts created inbound migration, and allowed more investment in the state’s businesses. “We have more people working than ever,” he said. “Out inbound migration is #5 in the nation.”

Younkin said they have a budget surplus for the 4th year in a row. He added that his friend, Idaho Governor Brad Little claims his economic program is the very best – it’s California.