Tax THIS!
October 28th, 2009 - 9:18 am
There’s John Galt action going on in New York:
More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.
The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City — meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.
“The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource — people,” the report said.
You know why people are leaving? Because their government considers them a “resource.”
Reminds me of a quote from Dilbert’s Pointy-Haired Boss: “Resources are our most valuable asset!”
I’d much rather be called a “resource” than a “consumer” any day. Of course, my proper title is Citizen.
Of course, with this story, I’m sure its not the people who can’t afford to live in NYC that are leaving to areas better matching their income potential. So NYC will just turn into a self selected ghetto. Along with many of the other big cities.
There is an app for that. One of the fringe candidates for mayor here in NYC is advocating the confiscation of the property of those leaving for tax reasons.
The eastern two-thirds of Pennsylvania has seen a big influx of NYC-area runaways. Numerous small towns have been getting smaller as younger people move out, and older longtime residents remain.
Now those towns, with cheap housing costs, have a lot of urban types, a new mix of ethnicities, and younger people unaccustomed to rural and small town cultures. New typed of crime and drug issues are popping up in formerly isolated podunk.
Yes, even some tiny towns of two or three thousand folks are now seeing gangs appear, and gangs clashing with rival gangs. A few indigenous potheads and speed enthusiasts are finding heroin and other fun stuff easy to come by.
A few towns in the eastern coal regions have probably 30 – 40% of their population being NYC-area relocators who have just moved in over the last five years. And the Poconos are now just another NYC suburb.
Yes, the US is not like France, we don’t keep our lower income and estranged folks cooped up in a banlieu, they are free to move when conditions get intolerable. And they apparently are in the New York metro area and New Jersey these days.
What you can’t tell from the Post article are how much of the outflow is due to retirement. When the #2 state receiving the migration is Florida, it sounds to me like a large percentage of this exodus are boomers retiring.
People left upstate NY long ago, so maybe it’s mostly NYC types and retirees.
I grew up about 90 miles north of the City. It was an IBM area. People making like $60-100K in the 80s when IBM early-retired as many as they could and took the rest and moved south, NC I think.
There’s a town, Ulster with a pop of probably around 5,000, that has two IBM facilities that are humongous. They were built for at least 5,000 workers and maybe more. A bunch of buildings all connected underground. The people were not making computers, they were selling, doing R&D and tech support.
The “city” in the area, Kingston, has around 25,000 people. Everybody worked for IBM or worked for some industry that served IBM or they were doctors and dentists for all the IBMers and they lost IBM and all the ancillary industries, Rotron for instance sold them fans I think.
They lost way over 5,000 workers lost in an area with probably not much more than 50,000 people, if even.
Now? Kingston has malls. It went from $80K in the 80s to $30K in 2009.
Tis a very depressing place. You can buy a house for pocket change, so it has that going for it.
@#5 TL
You could be right, but don’t assume that everyone who goes to Florida is retiring.
Rush Limbaugh.
Capitalism in action.
@#3 tim maguire….. That’s just great. Thought Police for real. Maybe they could build their own version of the Berlin Wall. Nobody gets to leave without “zee correct paperzzz.”
Really, if you put this stuff in a book or a movie, who would believe it?