IRS data shows ‘blue state exodus’ over past 30 years

(The Center Square) – Millions of residents from blue states have migrated to red states over the past 30 years, according to federal data. A political group that analyzed the data says it’s a clear sign that many Americans find Democratic policies unlivable.

From 1990 to 2021, a total of 13 million people left California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts and migrated to Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, Tennessee , Nevada and South Carolina during the same period.

Edward J. Pinto, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, attributes this “blue state exodus” to progressive policies, characterized by high crime, unaffordable housing, high taxes, and increasing levels of homelessness and unemployment which are driving residents away.

“The trend is undeniable: Americans are fleeing progressive states for conservative ones, and they are taking their incomes with them,” Pinto wrote in a recent op-ed published in Newsweek.

The American Enterprise Institute is a free-market think tank “dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and more secure world,” according to its website .

IRS data reveals that California led the nation in net outward migration between 1990 and 2021, hemorrhaging a total of 4.6 million people during that time. New York lost about the same number, many of whom moved to Florida.

More than two million residents have left Illinois in the past 30 years, and 1 million have left New Jersey. Massachusetts saw an exodus of 800,000 people, including 50,000 in 2020 alone.

Pinto says economically and socially attractive policies in red states, including cutting taxes, getting tough on crime, supporting school choice, and enforcing immigration laws, are likely the reason for which so many blue state residents have migrated.

Unless Democratic governors change course, Pinto said, their “states will face a fatal loop of permanent decline due to population decline, increasing subsidies, diminishing economic vitality, increasing poverty and a less prosperous future.