Quote:
Originally Posted by BrinChi
Where are Illinoisans moving to?
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/opin...is-hello-where
The adjusted gross income of Illinois taxpayers who didn’t migrate averaged $78,959. Illinois has been losing high-income residents (a lot of them retirees, one imagines) to Florida, middle-income residents to the South and West, and those with lower incomes to neighboring states. Also, the top two destinations for Illinois migrants are the top two for the nation as a whole, with Florida first, Texas second.
Domestic migration statistics are frequently cited as evidence of the failures of blue-state governance, in particular the higher taxes imposed by states that are losing lots of residents. There’s something to that—income-tax-free Florida sure is attracting a lot of affluent people from Illinois and New York, and a recent study of high-income California taxpayers concluded that a 2012 income tax increase there did in fact drive some away. But California, Illinois and New York have all experienced bigger per capita personal income gains than the nation as a whole since the beginning of 2010, and all saw taxpayers with incomes below $50,000 overrepresented among the leavers from 2011 through 2018. These departures may indicate failures of governance as well, but it’s a different set of governance failures, presumably related more to housing costs, commutes and job opportunities than taxes per se.
There also isn’t much evidence in the IRS data—yet—of an exodus of high-income taxpayers hit by the state-and-local-tax-deduction limits imposed by the 2017 tax bill. That is, the number of taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more leaving for other states actually fell in high-tax California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York from 2017 to 2018, the year the cap went into effect. Those who ended up with higher tax bills due to the change generally didn’t find out exactly how much higher until 2019, though, so it may just be too early to tell.
|
Shit like this reinforces my belief that in order to stop hemorrhaging people, Chicago and the state have to play both the national and international game of attracting/heavily courting businesses, institutions, NGOs, entertainment industry funders to setup shop here in order to make the state that people NEED to be in, not just because they want to be here. We don't have the weather, nor the geography, nor (currently) the financial health to attract new residents and keep current residents in the state, so there has to be greater reliance on a 'need-to-be in Illinois/Chicago' factor. People need to be in NYC for the financial, media, fashion sectors as well as the UN. Chicago and Illinois will keep falling further and further behind and losing more people if certain attitudes don't change. There's a 'contentment' factor that I see everywhere I turn, where 'there is enough' and no need to go beyond what we currently have, in every aspect of life here, that I think is self-damaging because I really believe that it prevents people, communities, institutions and even entire cities from being ambitious.
It's not possible to be attractive when there is a self-inflicted limit to the perception of what can be possible. We need more housing, we need more museums, we need more highrises, we need to increase tech, banking, fashion, media, science and social and civic things based in Chicago. There needs to be more of everything otherwise the engines of growth stall, which is exactly what is already happening.
And because I'm already in a salty mood, if you have a state sponsored pension from Illinois and you choose to move out of state, you should be cut off, because that OTHER state is now benefiting from that person's residency; take the money and run is bullshit.