Illinois, New York and California have been hemorrhaging high-earning residents who have packed their bags for states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina in recent years, according to newly released IRS data.
Major blue states have been losing a large amount of adjusted gross income (AGI) as it moved across state lines, according to IRS statistics from 2021 noted by the Wall Street Journal.
The data, which is released every spring, showed that Illinois lost a net 105,000 people in 2021, which cost the state approximately $10.9 billion in AGI, which was a marked increase from $8.5 billion in 2020 and $6 billion in 2019.
New York similarly lost $24.5 billion in 2021, which spiked from $19.5 billion in 2020 and just $9 billion in 2019.
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California bled $29.1 billion in AGI in 2021, which the outlet noted was nearly triple what the state lost two years earlier.
The data also found that while major blue states lost AGI, other states raked it in.
The AGI in Florida, which has no state income tax, swelled to $39.2 billion in 2021, an increase from $23.7 billion in 2020 and $17.7 billion in 2019.
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Some $9.8 billion of the Florida’s increase came from New York, while $3.9 billion came from Illinois, $3.7 billion from New Jersey and $3.5 billion from California, the data show.
Texas also benefited from the blue-state exodus, drawing $10.9 billion in 2021 compared to $6.3 billion in 2020 and $4 billion in 2019, according to the figures.. Approximately half of Texas’ increase was reportedly due to residents fleeing California.
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California’s hemorrhaging population also contributed $4.4 billion to Nevada, $2.7 billion to Arizona and $2 billion to Washington state.
Illinois lost much of its income to its neighbors, but Florida, Texas, Indiana and Wisconsin were the biggest beneficiaries.
Data has shown that many Americans fled blue cities for red states during the pandemic. The top 15 cities by rate of population growth between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021, were concentrated in red states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee and Idaho, according to an Axios analysis of Census Bureau data last year.