As it turns out, high-income earners are also fleeing the state, a new twist in California’s exit.

That should worry ruling liberal Democrats, who like to tax rich people and spend their money, especially on social programs.

Some golden geese fly out.

For years, once-burgeoning California has bled its population. This has happened on several fronts.

More people are moving to other states than moving here.

The influx of foreign immigrants has slowed significantly.

Fewer babies are being born. More people are dying.

It’s the flow of Californians to other states that is so unusual. The whole 20th

the c

Over time, people from the Midwest and South from all over America flocked here for jobs, opportunities, sunshine and a better life.

My father left his family’s depressed farm in the 1920s to work in the oil fields of Southern California. My quarter-Cherokee mom left Oklahoma at the same time because she thought her home state was bigoted and California was more tolerant and enlightened. Neither of them ever regretted it.

Millions of Californians have similar stories.

But many descendants of last century’s newcomers now see better opportunities for the good life in other states. California is too expensive and with their earnings they can buy more elsewhere.

That being said,

were still packed in ours

big cities

are still crowded

. And we have more people than our available water and power grids can often handle, contributing to the departure.

California is still by far the

largest

most populous state, with an estimated 39 million people last year, according to the US Census Bureau. But Texas won with 30 million.

Coming in on the 21st

st c

Of course, when California’s population was about 34 million, it was predicted that we would reach 45 million in 2020 and 59 million in 2040. To the extent that. We peaked at 39.6 million in 2019 and have been losing population ever since.

So far we have denied and told ourselves that highly educated people with higher incomes would not leave. Our progressive tax base and growing economy were safe. Those leaving were low-to-middle-income people who were not the heavy taxpayers or major job producers.

Everyone seemed to believe this, although many could cite anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

I plead guilty. I wrote this two years ago:

More wealthy people have moved here than are leaving. They can afford our rising cost of living. Political spin on rich people abandoning California is fake news.

That’s what the think tanks said. Now they have dug into the latest data and found that people of all economic classes are leaving, including the wealthy.

Most notably, California is now losing both higher-income households and middle- and lower-income households, the independent Public Policy Institute of California reported Tuesday.

Outbound migration has the power to reshape the state, the PPIC asserted, adding that the state no longer has significant appeal to people from other states of any age, education or income.

California still has an incredible economy, a powerhouse worldwide, says PPIC demographer Eric McGhee. There are many positives here, but a shrinking population is a sign that something isn’t working for people. They feel that they cannot build a good life here.

That’s partly because housing is unaffordable or not worth the cost in comparison for many people

along

Cheaper homes in other states.

The median price of a single-family home in California was $735,480 last month, according to the California

Association Assn.

of brokers. That’s out of reach for many people, even though it was nearly 5% lower than the previous February. Since then, mortgage rates have risen enormously.

We all know one reason for high housing costs: demand exceeds supply. We built only a third of the houses we did 60 years ago, when the population was less than half of what it is today,

according to said

Dan Dunmoyer, chairman

and CEO

of the California Building Industry Assn.

Another reason for the high costs and slow construction is a quagmire of regulations, including some frivolous lawsuits aimed at stalling housing projects.

Dunmoyer says two Texas regions, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth region, built more homes last year than all of California. in 2022,

there were

an estimated 128,000 housing permits

goods

issued in California, about half of what was in 2005.

The net loss of high-income earners is relatively small, says McGhee. But the number leaving California has risen dramatically to 220,000 by 2021, he reports.

It wouldn’t take many fleeing rich people to damage the treasury. The top 1% of earners pay nearly 50% of income tax. The top 10% kick in about 80%.

Taxes are certainly part of the story of why high-income people leave, McGhee says. Taxes are the last straw that pushes them over the edge.

California imposes by far the highest state income tax rate in the country:

13.3%. According to the Census Bureau, Texas is the preferred destination for departing travelers from California. The Lone Star State has no income tax and neither does Nevada, another favorite. Or Washington and Florida, other attractive states for Californians. the no 2 destination is arizona.

Many highly educated, high-income people are moving out of state because they can now work from home anywhere in the country for a well-paid California company, McGhee says.

See how long that will take when California companies realize that their employees’ cost of living has dropped and they no longer have to pay as much. Chances are the workers are still not moving back to California.