New York, California and Illinois lost thousands of “rich young professionals” who fled the Democrat-run state for low-tax havens like Texas and Florida, according to a study.
The study conducted by SmartAsset of workers under the age of 35 who earn $100,000 per year cited inflow and outflow of young professionals by gleaning information from Internal Revenue Service data, including tax returns from 2019 and 2020.
New York had the largest net outflow of young professionals — 15,788, the study found. A whopping 28,741 moved out, while 12,953 moved to the state.
The study was first cited by CNBC Make It.
California saw the second-highest net outflow of young professionals. In 2019 and 2020, 20,568 young professionals moved to the state, but 28,528 left, according to the SmartAsset study, making for a net outflow of 7,960.
Illinois has also been hemorrhaging under-35 workers, the study found. The Prairie State lost 9,386 young professionals while gaining just 6,527 — a net outflow of 2,859. Several large companies have recently announced they were moving their headquarters out of Chicago, citing soaring levels of crime.
Massachusetts also experienced a significant net outflow. The Bay State lost 8,160 young professionals while just 6,290 moved in — resulting in a net outflow of 1,870.
The District of Columbia also saw an exodus of young workers making more than $100,000. In the two-year stretch spanning 2019 and 2020, more than 4,800 people left the capital while just 2,729 moved in — making for a net outflow of 2,074.
DC saw the largest proportion of rich young professionals move elsewhere relative to its population, according to the study.
Texas was the state that wealthy millennials chose above all the others as their new home, the study found.
In 2019 and 2020, a total of 15,024 rich young professionals moved in to the Lone Star State, while 11,201 moved out, according to SmartAsset. The state saw a net inflow of 3,823 — the largest of any of the 50 states.
Florida followed right behind Texas. The Sunshine State saw a net inflow of 3,411 rich young professionals.
Other Sun Belt states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama also reported positive net migration figures, according to SmartAsset.
The findings of the SmartAsset study are consistent with a similar survey done earlier this year by Brookings Institution which found that Republican-run states such as Florida, Texas, Utah and the Carolinas recovered quicker from the pandemic than blue states.
The study found that GOP-run states added 341,000 jobs in the last two-and-a-half years.
During that same period, blue states lost some 1.3 million jobs.
Moody’s Analytics also analyzed migration data which found that in the one-year period that started in February 2021, 46 million people moved to a different ZIP code.
The states that saw the biggest gains in net migration were Florida, Texas and North Carolina — each of which voted for the Republican candidate for president in the last two election, Donald Trump.
The states that lost the biggest number of residents were California, New York and Illinois, which are all controlled by a Democratic-majority legislature and Democratic governors.
Analysts said that the migration could be explained by the closure of offices and the necessity of remote work due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Employees who were no longer tied to their cubicles could relocate to states that boast warmer climates, cheaper housing, less dense populations, and lower cost of living while continuing to work remotely.
Before remote work, employees gravitated to where companies’ offices were located. But the pandemic gave workers the option of where to live, leading to a massive migration away from the large cities on the coast.
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