Every one of the ten U.S. counties that lost the most taxpayers to other states sits in California or New York, both governed by Democrats, both defined by high taxes, and both now watching billions of dollars in income walk out the door. The latest IRS data, compiled from federal tax returns, offers what Fox News described as "one of the clearest snapshots of where Americans are relocating, and where their income is moving with them."
Los Angeles County alone saw a net loss of 17,496 tax filers, who took more than $1 billion in income with them. Queens County, New York, lost 17,109 taxpayers. And Manhattan, which actually gained more interstate tax filers than any other county in the nation, still managed to lose nearly $1 billion in adjusted gross income, a sign that the people arriving earn far less than the people leaving.
The pattern is not subtle. It is not ambiguous. And it is not slowing down.
Heritage Foundation chief economist E.J. Antoni laid out the destination map in blunt terms. As Breitbart News reported, Antoni told Fox News that the migration trail tells its own story:
"If you look at where these people are going, they're not going to Massachusetts or Illinois or California. They're going to Texas. They're going to Tennessee. They're going to Florida, places with low or no income taxes and low overall levels of taxation."
Antoni said it was "evident people 'vote with their feet' in deciding to move." The phrase has become a cliché in policy circles. The numbers behind it have not.
The IRS figures reinforce a broader trend documented across multiple analyses. The New York Post reported that between 2022 and 2023, California lost $11.9 billion in net adjusted gross income from migration, the most of any state. New York lost $9.9 billion. Illinois lost $6 billion. Massachusetts lost $4 billion. All four are Democrat-led, high-tax states.
On the other side of the ledger, Florida gained $20.6 billion. Texas gained $5.5 billion. South Carolina gained $4.1 billion. All Republican-led. All with lower tax burdens.
Doug Kellogg of Americans for Tax Reform framed the disparity in terms the Post quoted directly: "The problem with blue-state Democrat governance is hitting the taxpayer piñata is the only plan they have, and the piñatas have moved out." He added: "Red states are so far ahead on the scoreboard the competition is over."
This is not a new phenomenon. But it is getting worse, fast. Just The News reported that California now loses one taxpayer every one minute and 44 seconds. Florida gains one every two minutes and nine seconds. California's taxpayer fund losses ballooned from $9 billion in 2018 to $29 billion in 2020. Florida's tax gains rose from $17 billion to $39 billion over the same period.
Andrew Wilford of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation told Just The News that the COVID-19 pandemic "accelerated a trend that was already happening." Remote work loosened the geographic grip of high-cost cities. Once people could leave, they did, and they kept going.
Wilford noted that the receiving states benefit broadly. "Welcoming people moving from other states means more job creators, more innovators, and a larger tax base from the economic activity that they generate," he said. In other words, the gain for Texas and Florida is not merely symbolic. It is structural.
The political consequences are just as real. Democrat-run states losing population are also losing congressional seats and electoral votes, while gaining states pick them up. The migration is not just reshaping the economy. It is reshaping the map. Economist Stephen Moore, in an analysis cited by Newsmax, called this "the most significant economic and demographic trend happening in America today. And it's not slowing down, it's accelerating."
Moore added a sharper point: "These states are hemorrhaging taxpayers, jobs, and capital. And their political leaders seem unwilling to acknowledge the reasons why."
New York's losses deserve a closer look because the state's leadership keeps finding new ways to make them worse. The Washington Examiner reported that New York lost more than $14.1 billion in state-adjusted gross income over 2021, 2022 alone due to domestic out-migration. Over 476,000 filers and dependents left the state in that period. More than 88,000 of them went to Florida, taking $9.5 billion in income. Nearly 80,000 went to New Jersey, carrying $6 billion.
Republicans in New York have pointed to the state's highest-in-the-nation tax burden, excessive regulations, and rising labor costs as drivers. The data backs them up.
Then came the mayoral election. New York City elected Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat whose left-wing policy positions prompted immediate concern about a further exodus, particularly among the city's wealthiest residents. A prior report found that more than 26 percent of New York City residents were considering leaving if Mamdani won. He won. State leaders subsequently took steps aimed at keeping billionaires from moving out, though the specifics and effectiveness of those efforts remain unclear.
Manhattan's paradox captures the dynamic perfectly. The borough attracted more interstate tax filers than any other county in the nation. Yet it still lost nearly $1 billion in adjusted gross income. The people coming in earn less. The people going out take real wealth with them. A city can gain bodies and lose its tax base at the same time, and Manhattan is proving it.
The broader Democratic Party is dealing with fractures on multiple fronts. In Maine, state Democrats have warned Chuck Schumer to stay out of their Senate race, a sign of internal tension that mirrors the party's inability to hold its coalition together at the state level.
When taxpayers leave, they do not just take their income. They take the revenue that funds schools, police departments, fire stations, roads, and public infrastructure. Fox News noted that the migration trends carry potential effects on school funding, public safety, and infrastructure in the counties losing residents.
This creates a vicious cycle. As the tax base shrinks, the remaining residents face pressure to cover the gap, through higher taxes, reduced services, or both. Higher taxes push more people out. The cycle accelerates.
Minnesota offers a cautionary example beyond the California and New York data. The Washington Free Beacon reported that under Governor Tim Walz, nearly 46,000 Minnesotans left the state between April 2020 and July 2023, taking almost $5 billion in household income with them. Minnesota lost a net $2.2 billion in household income in 2022 alone, the biggest population drop in at least 30 years. The state's per capita GDP fell below the national average in 2023 for the first time in recorded history.
The pattern repeats wherever the same policy ingredients appear: high taxes, heavy regulation, rising costs, and leadership that treats productive residents as a revenue source rather than a constituency.
Democrats nationally are struggling to hold ground even in states they once considered safe. Michigan's Senate primary field fractured after a prominent candidate dropped out, leaving the party scrambling for a viable path forward.
The IRS data does not specify which exact tax year it covers, it is described only as the "latest" available. The names of eight of the ten worst-performing counties remain unreported beyond Los Angeles, Queens, and the Manhattan anomaly. And the full scale of the income replacement problem, how much of the lost revenue, if any, is being offset by new arrivals, remains an open question.
But the direction is unmistakable. Affordability, taxes, and job opportunities are the stated reasons people give for leaving. The destinations they choose confirm it. They are not moving to other high-tax blue states. They are moving to Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina.
Meanwhile, the political class in the losing states continues to act as though the problem is messaging rather than policy. Some progressive voices have gone so far as to question the American system itself, one television commentator recently called America a "failed experiment", rather than reckon with the concrete failures of governance in the states their allies control.
The controversy extends to Washington, where Democratic members of Congress have drawn fire for freelancing on foreign policy even as their party's domestic credibility erodes. The disconnect between elite progressive priorities and the lived experience of taxpayers in blue states grows wider by the quarter.
Strip away the political framing and the IRS data tells a straightforward story. People move toward opportunity and away from burden. They move toward states that let them keep more of what they earn. They move away from states that treat every budget shortfall as a reason to raise taxes on the people who remain.
California and New York are not losing residents because of bad weather or bad luck. They are losing residents because of policy choices, choices made by the officials those states elected, sustained by the political culture those states cultivated, and paid for by the taxpayers who finally decided they had paid enough.
The IRS does not editorialize. It counts. And right now, the count is running in one direction: out of blue America, into red.
When your residents are leaving at a rate of one per minute, the problem is not that they lack loyalty. The problem is that you gave them nothing worth staying for.