The Wealthiest Californians are Leaving the State, Hurting the Economy, Statistics Confirm 221
"For several years, thousands more high-earning, well-educated workers have left California than have moved in," reports the Los Angeles Times:
Even though California has experienced lopsided out-migration for decades, the financial blow has been cushioned by the kinds of people moving into the state: The newcomers were generally better educated and earned more money than those who left. Not now: That long-standing trend has reversed...
The reversal, largely in response to the state's high taxes and soaring cost of living, has begun to damage California's overall economy. And, by cutting into tax revenues, has delivered punishing blows to state and local governments. State budget analysts recently projected a record $68 billion deficit in the next fiscal year because of a 25% drop in personal income tax collection in 2023. Some city, county and other local taxing authorities, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, have also recorded revenue declines. With investors and high-income taxpayers receiving substantial compensation in the form of stocks, last year's sluggish stock market accounted for a major share of the decline in state income tax revenues. So did layoffs and financial weakness in the tech sector. But rising unemployment in the state and the growing flight of professionals, business operators and others making good salaries were also notable contributors. And those factors will be harder to reverse, at least in the foreseeable future.
"There's a price to pay for the movement of middle- and upper-income people and corporations," said Joel Kotkin, a fellow at Chapman University who has researched the flight from California and the resulting threat to the state's fiscal outlook. "People who are leaving are taking their tax dollars with them."
The accelerating exodus from California in recent years, of both companies and people, has been well documented. The pandemic-induced rise in remote work, inflated housing prices and changing social conditions have spurred more Californians to pull up stakes... Moody's Analytics economist Mark Zandi analyzed moves in and out of California for The Times using Equifax credit data, to zero in on the age of the movers. He found that since the pandemic in early 2020, California has lost residents in every age group, but by a significant margin the biggest net out-migration came from those 35 to 44 years old. "This is probably motivated by the severe housing affordability crisis in California," Zandi said. "It's all but impossible for them to become homeowners in the state."
Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, who has written about demographic trends in migration, thinks the increased loss of higher-educated Californians to other states in recent years can be traced in significant part to the rise of remote work since the pandemic. As more employers call workers back to the office, and the share of fully remote work appears to have settled at around 10% of all employees, McGhee expects the net out-migration from California to slow...
Even if the outflow of residents reverts to pre-pandemic levels, the broader economic climate doesn't bode well for the state's budget and economic outlook, at least in the immediate future. The U.S. economy is slowing, and California's economy is decelerating faster than the nation's, with the state's unemployment rate, most recently at 4.8%, already a full point higher than nationwide.
The article clarifies that "it's not just the sheer numbers of people who have left. What's different is that in each of the prior two years, more than 250,000 Californians with at least a bachelor's degree moved out, while an average of 175,000 college graduates from other states settled in California, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. In prior periods over the last two decades, that balance was about even or slightly in California's favor."
And besides billionaires, "There's been a broader exodus of ordinary Californians in the upper-income spectrum as well. In the tax filing years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000. That was up from $75,000 in 2015 and 2016, according to migration and personal income data from the Internal Revenue Service."
The reversal, largely in response to the state's high taxes and soaring cost of living, has begun to damage California's overall economy. And, by cutting into tax revenues, has delivered punishing blows to state and local governments. State budget analysts recently projected a record $68 billion deficit in the next fiscal year because of a 25% drop in personal income tax collection in 2023. Some city, county and other local taxing authorities, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, have also recorded revenue declines. With investors and high-income taxpayers receiving substantial compensation in the form of stocks, last year's sluggish stock market accounted for a major share of the decline in state income tax revenues. So did layoffs and financial weakness in the tech sector. But rising unemployment in the state and the growing flight of professionals, business operators and others making good salaries were also notable contributors. And those factors will be harder to reverse, at least in the foreseeable future.
"There's a price to pay for the movement of middle- and upper-income people and corporations," said Joel Kotkin, a fellow at Chapman University who has researched the flight from California and the resulting threat to the state's fiscal outlook. "People who are leaving are taking their tax dollars with them."
The accelerating exodus from California in recent years, of both companies and people, has been well documented. The pandemic-induced rise in remote work, inflated housing prices and changing social conditions have spurred more Californians to pull up stakes... Moody's Analytics economist Mark Zandi analyzed moves in and out of California for The Times using Equifax credit data, to zero in on the age of the movers. He found that since the pandemic in early 2020, California has lost residents in every age group, but by a significant margin the biggest net out-migration came from those 35 to 44 years old. "This is probably motivated by the severe housing affordability crisis in California," Zandi said. "It's all but impossible for them to become homeowners in the state."
Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, who has written about demographic trends in migration, thinks the increased loss of higher-educated Californians to other states in recent years can be traced in significant part to the rise of remote work since the pandemic. As more employers call workers back to the office, and the share of fully remote work appears to have settled at around 10% of all employees, McGhee expects the net out-migration from California to slow...
Even if the outflow of residents reverts to pre-pandemic levels, the broader economic climate doesn't bode well for the state's budget and economic outlook, at least in the immediate future. The U.S. economy is slowing, and California's economy is decelerating faster than the nation's, with the state's unemployment rate, most recently at 4.8%, already a full point higher than nationwide.
The article clarifies that "it's not just the sheer numbers of people who have left. What's different is that in each of the prior two years, more than 250,000 Californians with at least a bachelor's degree moved out, while an average of 175,000 college graduates from other states settled in California, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. In prior periods over the last two decades, that balance was about even or slightly in California's favor."
And besides billionaires, "There's been a broader exodus of ordinary Californians in the upper-income spectrum as well. In the tax filing years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000. That was up from $75,000 in 2015 and 2016, according to migration and personal income data from the Internal Revenue Service."
hey Gavin Newsome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hey Gavin Newsome (Score:5, Insightful)
He should demand that the red states start paying their fair share to the federal government and stop relying on subsidies from California and the other blue states. [moneygeek.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
He should demand that the red states start paying their fair share
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." - Karl Marx
Perhaps the federal government figures that the red states need or deserve the money more. But that's what socialism will lead to. Some distant bureaucrat allocating your resources. Learn to love it.
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Perhaps the federal government figures that the red states need or deserve the money more. But that's what socialism will lead to.
That's what pork-barrel capitalism has led to.
Projection is not truth.
If all states were (the other) red states, every hog would have its place at the trough.
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Most of that imbalance comes from two sources: military bases and Social Security. Both of those are due to things typically being cheaper in "red" states than in "blue" states.
If you want the military to pay higher rent and cost-of-living payments than it needs to just to have bases in the San Francisco Bay area (or wherever), that tells us all we need to know about how serious you are.
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:2)
Federal funds are used to help poor people nationwide. There's a shit ton of poor people in most of these red states that pull a greater share.
So if we believe in the rich paying for poor people. Then yes, Californians should be paying for these people in red states because there's simply not enough rich money in them to counteract the poor.
I'm not sure how much Californians and New Yorkers realize what passing progressive federal laws means to them when you factor in the destitute fly over states that they
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if the 1% already aren't paying their fair share as, as democrats often assert, then this shouldn't be a problem if they're moving out. If anything, them moving out should be a net boon.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure how this state thinks it can afford to give free health care to illegal immigrants, or free college to Mexicans who have never even been residents of the US. Maybe they passed these laws when they were applauding Gavin Newsome when he predicted a $98 billion budget surplus this year, but they've long since learned that it's actually a $31 billion dollar deficit which will more than double next year, so they've had plenty of time to reverse all of this. And we haven't even gotten to the reparations that the state it found it owes.
Oh well, now that they're running out of other people's money, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to pay for it with their own.
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I'm not sure how this state thinks it can afford to give ... illegal immigrants
Its simple, really. The answer is taxes.
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:4, Insightful)
In case you haven't noticed, despite being one of the highest taxing states already, California is currently financially upside down. And California has also likely already passed an inflection point where the taxes billed are simply too high relative to the value that people perceive to have gained by living in the state. I really like the way this guy put it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
And what he's alluding to there, that a lot of people like you like to deride, is what's commonly called the Laffer curve. And typically the reason you people deride it is because there aren't any numbers behind it to say just how much taxation is too much taxation before you start seeing decreased tax revenue. And this is exactly why you're doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes. There is no number or percentage or anything you can point to as being exactly where the inflection point will be, and there never will be. All you have to know is that one does exist, and it's different for every person. This is because value is very subjective. Eventually enough people decide that it's not worth it to them, and guess what they do? They move out.
You know what I hate the most about California's taxes? It's not the dollar amount. What I hate is the fact that I literally don't get a god damn thing in return. This state is leaving its infrastructure in disrepair, and nobody has any idea what any of that money goes towards. "But, it's going to the poor, and the homeless, and the illegal immigrants, because they deserve a living!" And you know what? That's wonderful for them, I'm happy for them that the state is providing so much value to them. But as for me, I pay a lot of money out, and all I really get in return is nice weather and a beach. Basically just the land, that's it. That's the only value I get out of being here. But you know what? I can move elsewhere and get all of that AND I can go somewhere where not only do I pay less in tax money, but I can actually see it being put to good use. Yes, most people consider cost of living more than taxes, but I'm personally at an income level where I'm hit very hard by both. While I can deal with one, dealing with both is just not worth it. Something has to change. Something somewhere has to give. And the only thing this state seems interested in changing is digging itself into an even deeper financial hole.
So we have a really simple solution here: At some point I move out, the people who like it will stay, and California loses yet another person who gives a lot more to the state than the state gives back. In my place comes someone like rsilvergun, a guy who takes a lot more than he gives. It's totally worth it to you in the end though, because he agrees with your ideology, and the last thing you need is high income earners like me paying to keep the lights on at the government offices while making him look bad. In the end, California's budget deficit gets even bigger. This is the reality that is ultimately going to bite progressive ideology really hard in the end. And it's not just California -- New York is facing the same problem, apparently (the ultimate irony here is that if Wall Street left, NYC would go bankrupt overnight.)
rsilvergun insists that it will work itself out in the end, they just need to keep defunding the police and give out more free education and the ship will just right itself and California will be the happy police-free utopia that Marx predicted. And maybe it will, I don't know, it just seems incredibly unlikely, especially in light of the fact that the state is building a $100 billion railway to nowhere that they've already sunk who knows how many tens of billions on. Either way, I don't intend to stick around and find out, particularly given the state legislature has already expressed an interest in making it hard for high income earners to leave (and they'd have it already if Gavin Newsome was only a little bit more in the deep-end and didn't veto the bill.)
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:4, Insightful)
Enough economic benefits to cover a $68 billion budget deficit?
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:4, Informative)
IF they dont pay their fair share, the government spends more on them than the taxes it collects from them. If that is true, then not collecting any taxes from them, and not providing any services to them, should be a net positive for the government, since it loses less by providing for them. Win, win.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Enough to cover their non-existent tax contribution. The left say the rich dont pay their fare share. If their fare share is what it costs to provide them government services, then them leaving should burden the government less. Fair share = Government expense for their services.
Your definition of fair share doesn't match what the democrats think is the fair share due the rich. Our progressive tax system expects the rich to contribute a higher percentage of their income in taxes. That is what the democrats consider a "fair share". It has nothing to do with the value of the services that the rich consume.
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:3)
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Except this is completely backwards in a true Orwellian fashion. It is not the wealthiest, who are gaining most from society, it is society, who is gaining most from the wealthiest.
What is society gaining from all of the bums living on the dole or all of the homeless?
How much is society gaining from one single billionaire?
Of course the society turns it upside down and sideways, insisting that the billionaires are not paying some magic fair share, the reality is that if all billionaires were to disappear to
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Except this is completely backwards in a true Orwellian fashion. It is not the wealthiest, who are gaining most from society, it is society, who is gaining most from the wealthiest.
No, you have that backwards. What good is wealth without a functioning society? I hear Louis XVI was pretty loaded...
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:3)
Re: hey Gavin Newsome (Score:3, Informative)
Billionaires hire/employ lots and lots of middle-income and lower income workers/taxpayers.
Ronald Reagan, back when the tax rate was 90%, like many of his fellow big $ stars, limited his work to keep his tax rate manageable. Why would he keep making movies if he only kept 10% of his additional income? What happened was he made fewer movies, and since he made fewer movies, there was less work for camera men, set constructors, lower-income actors, etc.
The high tax rate had a huge, disparate impact on lower in
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Why would he keep making movies if he only kept 10% of his additional income? What happened was he made fewer movies, and since he made fewer movies, there was less work for camera men, set constructors, lower-income actors, etc.
BS.
Last year of the 90% tax rate was 1963 (which, BTW, Regan did his last film in 1965 - the vast majority of his work was his earlier years, so he spent most of his career with that 90% looming..) The tax rate was 90.0% > $200,000 and 91.0% >$300,000. In todays money, thats greater than 2.88 million dollars income was taxed at 91% - however that was INCOME. The rich, just like today, knew how to play the system and would put the money into investments, effectively showing very little income per y
Not enough money (Score:3)
You would have to pay me at least $1M/year to live there.
Another $1M/year for my wife to live there.
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Have you been watching Fox again? Is Infowars still going? Ben Shapiro perhaps? Don't tell me it's Matt Walsh.
Re: Not enough money (Score:5, Interesting)
Came from actual accountants who I paid to do my taxes. In a nutshell, you can't simply walk out on California. First you have to file for a divorce, which the state may or may not grant, and even if it does grant a divorce, in my case it will order me to pay alimony. Details here:
https://www.modernfp.com/blog/... [modernfp.com]
If you don't do this, then they'll send the FSB after you.
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Sounds completely normal. In Europe it's the same, your income (including capital gains) is usually taxed by the state you were tax resident in when the activity started.
Re: Not enough money (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Because not long ago it seemed so odd to you that surely it must have come from Alex Jones.
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It was the way you phrased it, the nonsense about communism for example. It's completely normal in capitalist countries.
Come to think of it, doesn't the federal US government make ex-pats pay tax if they leave the country? That's extraordinary. I guess the US was communist all along.
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The problem with this theory is that it's been like that since the 60s in Europe, and these dire predictions have not come true.
Also are you really afraid of hipsters with photos of Mao? You may have heard the song "Revolution", written by The Beatles in the 1960s. It mentions people carrying photos of Mao... And yet here we are, no communism in sight. The UK, where the song was written, isn't even very socialist in comparison to other European countries.
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As someone who does not live in California, I was completely ignorant of the fact that California charges you state taxes just for selling stuff to Californians. I looked it up after reading your post. Even if you have never lived there and never set foot there, just selling remotely to people who live there saddles you with a state tax liability.
Personally, this seems like overreach to me. I think the laws that allow this are broken and should be fixed.
So anyway, thanks for the heads up. If I ever set
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Re: Not enough money (Score:5, Informative)
My state charges ME sales tax on stuff that I buy from out-of-state using the Internet. This taxation existed prior to the Internet, is practiced by many states, and is a tax states impose on their own residents.
California is doing the exact opposite. It is charging the out-of-state vendor income tax on what they sell to California residents.
That is what seems like overreach to me. If the person does not live in your state, then they are not in your tax jurisdiction. Or rather, that is how it seems to me that things should be. It turns out, things are not this way.
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That is what seems like overreach to me.
Actually you just described the exact same process by a different name. In either case you're taxing on a good sold in California. In either case the vendor solves the tax (otherwise every transaction you would be doing would involve talking to the government, a distinction you'd understand if you ever imported something and actually did have to "pay tax yourself" rather than letting the vendor solve this for you).
Re: Not enough money (Score:3)
He clearly says "income tax" and you keep countering with "sales tax" - please tell me you understand the difference.
Re: Not enough money (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Not enough money (Score:2)
Ahh yes, Florida... the same state that was charging a one off "car impact tax" to people moving there in the 90's, which finally got batted down and they had to refund everyone back the $300 they paid to move there
Re: Not enough money (Score:3)
That was 30 years ago, are you really trying to tie that to Ron DeSantis? Really?
I think he was in high school at the time...
Honestly the super rich don't pay taxes (Score:2)
What the article is calling high income earners are people making $137k a year. I can tell you that in a much lower cost of living State you need about 70k a year for a single person to get by now because of the insane cost of housing. I don't think there's a lot of high income earners that
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Even in California there's no shortage of ways to evade them. They are however a pretty big drain on resources because they can use tons of water for their palatial estates and there's not a lot you can do about it.
Sounds like a win-win. California's water problems totally have nothing to do with LA encasing their river in concrete and dumping natural fresh water sources into the ocean instead of refilling aquifers, or California dumping a lot of water into growing crops like almonds or alfalfa. It's all because of there being too many palatial estates.
What the article is calling high income earners are people making $137k a year.
That's low income here. I make basically twice that and shit here is too expensive even for my taste.
I can tell you that in a much lower cost of living State you need about 70k a year for a single person to get by now because of the insane cost of housing.
When I was in Phoenix, not only was that more than enough to not on
Record Budget Deficit (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps California is in need of a stronger governor who can stand up to the profligate spending [turner.com] of the legislature.
Re:Record Budget Deficit (Score:5, Informative)
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they believe everything they have done is what voters want
And they will be getting the voters that they are asking for.
Re: Record Budget Deficit (Score:5, Interesting)
You should read the Federalist papers on why this vicious cycle will never end. California has a direct democracy on many laws and proposals, thus they continue voting for âless taxesâ(TM) and âmore servicesâ(TM). You ask someone what they want from government, it will always be âmore money for meâ(TM). Itâ(TM)s why the European experiment has failed as well, you want more centralized government so they are empowered to give you more free stuff while taking money from the richest, then you will end up with a situation where you have no rich people left to fund your wishlist granting government.
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Even rich people have to live somewhere.
In the end, making sure everyone has enough to lose that they don't try to get your money or die trying and either is fine by them is cheaper than hiring goons to protect you in your high security bunker you don't dare to leave because the rest of the country is a hellhole.
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Even rich people have to live somewhere.
Texas, Florida, Alaska, Nevada*, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming.
*Stateline, Nevada will do nicely. Just over the border from CA, on Lake Tahoe.
Re: (Score:2)
Florida
I thought the whole point of having money was that you can live somewhere nice? Florida is crowded and miserably hot and humid during the majority of the year. No amount of wealth can fix that.
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You're selling Florida short. Don't forget that the roaches can also fly.
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Yes, Florida is terrible.
We all agree.
Re: Record Budget Deficit (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course they do. When France did their 75% tax rate, many of them subsequently lived elsewhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
Boy did that one backfire. And certain morons who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
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You know, we did have that. Ok, not at that level, but back in the good old days, you know, the one that the die hard Republicans long for, back then our super rich did actually pay tax.
Re: Record Budget Deficit (Score:2)
You mean a high marginal income tax rate that nobody actually paid?
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The People's Republic of California is a bit like the People's Republic of China in this regard. Sure, there's democracy and all, but at the end of the day it's a single party system with a highly concentrated power structure. The elites take care of each other (example: LA city council gets paid more than the US Congress does, and their appointees, like the police and fire chiefs, get paid more than the president of the United States.) Oh, and then they talk about how there needs to be income equality, how
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Even rich people have to live somewhere.
No, actually they don't. But nobody wants to talk about how to get to that state of affairs.
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Now, now. I'm all for decapitating a few of them to make the rest rethink their position, but we needn't go overboard.
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Move to Mars with Elon?
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The irony is that you'd tell me to "move to Somalia."
Re: Record Budget Deficit (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah, they don't want healthcare. "Free Meth" would work better.
Re: (Score:2)
why the European experiment has failed as well
You got any proof of this?
Re: Record Budget Deficit (Score:2)
May want to spend money to heal this whole Trump vs republicans vs democrats rivalry. It is getting besides reality.
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Short of shelling the statehouse while they're in session, I doubt there's much hope for CA politics.
Beware the lying "news" (Score:3)
A lot of "news" lies directly to you constantly, because people tend to look for evidence of what they already want to believe, rather than trying to understand something they don't know about. Look at any piece of evidence a vast number of news stories or popular opinions on social media give and you'll find they didn't even bother trying to find evidence backing their claims up, they just posted a link and hoped you wouldn't click it.
The world is full of misinformation, 99.99% of it is lazy assed shite, all you have to do to be better than it is 30 seconds of homework.
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The important part is that either way, you have somebody besides yourself to blame for your failure at life.
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and most of the media is controlled by left-leaning agencies....whodathunkit
I might have thunk it, but that matters a lot less than almost all left and right media being controlled by the same moneyed interests. So I thunk that instead.
No but also yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reversal, largely in response to the state’s high taxes and soaring cost of living,
Taxes are a minor issue compared to the real issue, the cost of living. If they want to get things under control then they need to start by addressing absurd housing costs.
There are many things that can be done to address the housing issue but thus far they have chosen to cross their fingers and hope it goes away.
Re: No but also yes. (Score:3)
About 25-50% of a monthly mortgage cost in California is various taxes and the increase in cost of living is largely due to yet more taxes and regulatory fees on everything from utilities to food. People donâ(TM)t want to build more properties, because taxes and regulation increase the total cost to astronomical levels. Remove the obstacles from government and the rest fixes itself.
Re: No but also yes. (Score:2)
People not building housing is a feature, not a bug. It's a policy called BANANA.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hN... [youtube.com]
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About 25-50% of a monthly mortgage cost in California is various taxes
LOL! If you think "the wealthiest Californians" are leaving because they live in a $150K-$300 house out in the boonies then you have lost your mind. That's literally what you are suggesting and it's absolutely stupid.
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but thus far they have chosen to cross their fingers and hope it goes away.
. . . and we all know that thoughts and prayers only work on handguns!
They need to build more houses but ..... (Score:2)
Every time they start to do this ... some group files a lawsuit based on environmental concerns. A friend of mine is a lawyer and did some digging. turns out 90% of these environmental lawsuits are from organizations propped by large Calif companies that own a bunch of apartments and rental houses. Seems like they want to keep the prices high. Oh and they bought enough politicians so it will continue. End result enough people leave Cali rental and real estate prices will eventually fall. it's called
Please take a course in business or accounting (Score:2)
Taxes on any business activity are an EXPENSE to that business; they are simply added-in to the cost of its products and/or services right along with material costs, labor costs, facilities costs, energy costs, etc and are passed-along to the consumer as higher prices. It is mind-blowingly bizarre to assert that "Taxes are a minor issue compared to the real issue, the cost of living" - the one is directly driving the other. The primary drivers of the high costs in California are [1] taxes and[2] government
Housing (Score:2)
"average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000"
You can't buy much of a house in metropolitan California on an family income of 137K
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Tax those that remains (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess they're going to raise taxes on those that are still here, like me.
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Those who fail to understand the Laffer curve are doomed to experience the Laffer curve.
They're coming right back in (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll be short lived though. I can tell you every college grad in the country wants to move to CA but can't because of the high cost of housing.
What they're doing is working in other states, getting advanced degrees and getting ready to move to the State they wanted to when they finished their bachelor's.
California could fix this quick if they'd build affordable housing, and lord knows they have the money, but the old folk aren't gonna allow it since they're all planning to sell their homes for retirement money. So it won't happen until they're "aged out", about 8-10 years or so.
When that happens the housing crisis will get fixed and folks will flood back in. In the meantime CA is a classic case of "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded".
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the outflow isn't because people wanted to leave, it's because several corporations moved their headquarters.
That changes basically nothing.
What they're doing is working in other states, getting advanced degrees and getting ready to move to the State they wanted to when they finished their bachelor's.
That's basically what's happening, and that's exactly why there's a big budget shortfall. It's essentially the exact opposite of what the status quo was four years ago. Basically you have people with high incomes leaving, and sometimes people with low incomes replacing them. I say sometimes, because usually nobody replaces them at all.
California could fix this quick if they'd build affordable housing, and lord knows they have the money, but the old folk aren't gonna allow it since they're all planning to sell their homes for retirement money. So it won't happen until they're "aged out", about 8-10 years or so.
I used to be in the "more housing will fix this" camp, but I really don't think that's the case. As time has gone by, our population increases b
Re: (Score:3)
Media turns on politicians, politicians DGAF (Score:2)
The politicians in California are careerists.
In the old days, this meant they'd graduate to a pinnacle of power and then rule from on high until they retired. Thanks to the incumbent advantage, they could even take some risks to accomplish longer term projects, and bank even more goodwill.
This changed with term limits.
Now they don't bother to do their jobs - their current job is a platform to land their next job. So it's all about what they can sell to voters instead of what they can actually do, and anyt
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The problem isn't the taxes. It's the cost of housing. A single family home is around 800k and often times over a 1,000,000. These aren't even impressive homes either. A condo starts at about 500k here. That doesn't even account for the HOAs, which are becoming more common, even for houses that don't need HOAs.
You essentially need two incomes of at least 80k to even consider owing a single family home. A simple search shows the MEDIAN income is only 78k. So half of all workers make LESS. That's at least hal
It's not taxes. It's the quality of life. (Score:5, Interesting)
Transit is similar: BART went downhill, becoming a rolling homeless shelter/insane asylum. And most other transportation systems were also affected.
If the rich people leave (Score:2)
Forever Trusts and legacy frozen land tax (Score:2)
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doodoo - a JarJar Binks term.
LOL wow, wow, I didn't know there were kids on slashdot so young they could think that doodoo was coined by Jarjar. What a world you live in.
Please, never read a book, you're soooo precious, we don't want to lose your innocence to the ravages of knowledge.
People who fixate on these things never seem to... (Score:2)
ask a basic question: "When did the politicians get to be so incompetent that they need more money to do what previous politicians did?" There's this really odd idea that government needs an ever-increasing tax level to keep operating. It should not take more money to educate a kid now than it used to, indeed technology should have made it CHEAPER. It should not take a higher tax rate to maintain the roads and libraries etc... the taxes that provide these things should be auto-scaling since they're tied to
Cost of living higher than value (Score:2)
Duh?
And I can't type a greater than and have it show up? Not prefacing with a slash or doubling it.
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You can use raw HTML in your comments, so all less-than and greater-than signs are interpreted as markups.
Tedious (Score:4, Informative)
These daily reports of the sky falling in California are as tedious as the twice yearly daylight savings time tirades on Slashdot.
Moving to Texas (Score:5, Informative)
I hear that a lot of people from California are moving to Texas. I can see how they would be escaping high housing costs, but housing in the Texas high-tech cities is very expensive as well.
Another issue is taxes. Texas is "the second-most regressive tax state, behind Washington State, due to low-income taxpayers bearing a disproportionate share of the tax burden".
"the top 1 percent of earners in Texas ($617,900 or more) pay 3.1 percent of their income in contrast to top earnings in California ($714,400 or more) who pay 12.4 percent. "
https://www.chron.com/news/hou... [chron.com]
Re:Moving to Texas (Score:4, Interesting)
Fuck'em (Score:2)
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or who gives a fuck
Well, Oregon gives a fuck, take them back! We have high taxes too, so what the fuck?! Go the fuck back!
Ping pong (Score:2)
Several months ago I read articles saying how the California exodus was a mirage. But then I read how all those people who moved to Texas are returning because they regretted it. But now they're leaving again? Sure.
2 grand a month in state taxes (Score:2)
Not unique to California (Score:2)
This sounds all too familiar in countries & cities that haven't managed their housing adequately & have left it to the markets. A number of EU govts are now reconsidering their housing policies & taking a fresh look at implementing more society-oriented housing programmes.
*Essentially, leaving housing to the market is gi
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Why do you think rich people don't contribute to the economy?
Rich people purchase stocks and bonds...that money flows into the hands of the local businesses in question and is used to further build the business. And, just for clarity, these businesses provide goods and services to people. Rich people also loan money to locals, which can spur purchases or the construction of new businesses.
Rich people also purchase food, clothing, shelter, electricity, medicine, insurance, and luxuries from local vendors,
Re:We know (Score:5, Interesting)
The rest of the country is well aware of this. They come into nice, clean, properly functioning states and fret over how much better it'd be with their California politics and policies, and quickly they begin to ruin things.
I have yet to see one of these "nice, clean, properly functioning states". Different states have different problems. All of them could be run better by a drunken chimpanzee flinging poo at the wall than by their elected officials.
Republican-run states are always on the dole, taking in more money from the federal government than they give back, because their states are under-taxed. Without that welfare program, they wouldn't be able to pay their bills. And they can't afford to maintain their infrastructure because they are so badly under-taxed.
Meanwhile, Democrat-run states tax too much, but because they almost never re-evaluate government programs to see if they are actually working, the government keeps getting bigger, and they still can't afford to maintain their infrastructure.
And regardless of party, they're pretty much all hopelessly in the pockets of corporations, and as a result, constantly make bad decisions based on corporate interests that go against taxpayers' best interests, like public funding for stadiums in the hopes of future tax revenue that never materializes, or huge tax breaks to lure companies into their towns based on a promise of jobs that never materialize.
So where, exactly, are these well-run states?
Re:We know (Score:5, Funny)
>So where, exactly, are these well-run states?
I'd tell you, but then you'd move here