Atlas Shrugs

Money – in the form of productive people – is moving from Blue to Red America:

Data show that several populous blue states—California, New York, and Illinois among them—have been losing population and companies for years. In 2021 Forbes wrote about “leftugees” fleeing blue states for red ones. A few years before that, a headline in The Hill touched on “the great exodus out of America’s blue cities.”

New IRS data, however, show the speed with which blue states are losing taxpayers—and their adjusted gross income (AGI)—is increasing. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that more than 100,000 people left Illinois in 2021, taking with them some $11 billion in AGI, nearly double its 2019 total. For New York it was $24.5 billion, an increase of more than 150 percent from 2019. California, meanwhile, saw its AGI loss ($29 billion) more than triple since 2019.

And Minnesota is far from immune – and, indeed, may be doing worse:

As Figure 1 shows, until 2001 Minnesota received more residents from other states each year than it lost to them. Since then, in all except two years, 2017 and 2018, our state has seen more residents leave than have chosen to come here from elsewhere in the United States. The loss of residents seen in 2021 and 2022 is not a new phenomenon, but the pace of exit is quickening: Minnesotans are fleeing the state in larger numbers.

Figure 1: Annual net domestic migration in Minnesota

Source: Census Bureau

Where did people move to and from? Figure 2 shows domestic net migration for 2022 for all the fifty states and District of Columbia. We see that the most popular destinations by far were Texas and Florida. On net, these states gained an impressive 549,816 residents in one year. The big losers were New York and California. Together, these two states lost a staggering 642,787 residents between 2021 and 2022.

It’s entirely possible that when co-governors Klink and Flanagan refer to “One Minnesota”, they mean “after all the productive, dissenting voters leave”.

31 thoughts on “Atlas Shrugs

  1. Is MN the first of the small states to suffer this same fate as CA, IL, and NY? Whatever happens, I wonder if it won’t all happen faster. So, like MN is leading the way?

  2. DFL politician:

    “Our economy cannot expand based on, white, B+, Minnesota-born citizens. We don’t have enough . . . Look around you. This is Minnesota, Minnesota is not like it was 30, 50 years ago . . . anybody who cannot accept this . . . should find another state.”

    White B+ Minnesota-born citizens:

    Your terms are acceptable.

  3. There are some of us choosing to move out of the Twin Cities metro area but still in MN. Hennepin County is abysmal. Happy to be up north at the lake. The trend is obvious in my new location.

  4. I’d like to be unwound out of my work and business affairs here in MN in the next two years, and then I’m out of MN. My wife would like to stay closer to friends and her side of the family, so maybe Wisconsin or Iowa is an option, at least for summer months. Otherwise I will be happy to expand my “spend no money in Minneapolis and St. Paul” edict to the entire state.

  5. Y’all are being replaced with 75IQ Somalians and 80IQ Guatemalan peasants with grade 5 educations.

    Leftist shitholes are following the South Africa model back to the stone age.

    I hear mud huts and tar paper shacks are actually pretty cozy. Can’t wait to hear first hand reports on MPR.

  6. passout76
    For now, but from friends that live in Cass, Crow Wing and Cook counties, hefty new property taxes are in the forefront.

  7. Tucker Carlson is moving his show to Twitr. His announcement had 80 million views in 7 hours.

    This is a game changer for the media. They see it, and they are freaking out.

    “New York
    CNN

    Right-wing extremist Tucker Carlson announced Tuesday that he will relaunch his program on Twitter, which he praised as the only remaining large free-speech platform in the world after Fox News fired him late last month.”

    It is also a shot across the bow for Youtube, which I don’t think anyone saw coming.

    If Musk gets his nerds to hatch a searchable video database, Twitr is on track to become The Media.

  8. Regarding lower population states suffering outflows, I believe Maryland and New Jersey both learned the hard way that punitive taxes on the rich tended to reduce tax revenues already. So we are a closer follower, not a leader, in this regard. I am guessing, though, that states that previously benefited from being transportation hubs (e.g. Illinois, New York, California) are going to suffer the most as commerce starts to go around these chokepoints.

  9. Your terms are acceptable

    No. They aren’t. I’m staying. And fighting back. I don’t live in the metro area, so I know my neighbors and friends – and family. And they are worth sticking up for. Besides, if things are going to be so bad, what kind of neighbor, friend, or family member am I to just bolt?

    The whole leaving thing is based on two weak assumptions. The first is that the evil ones and their orcs won’t be coming for you wherever you go; they will. In some places, they’re already there (do you know just how close the 2018 election for governor in Florida was?). The second weak assumption is that our home grown evil ones and their orcs are all that powerful. There are out-state counties that will resist excessive government; there’s also “Irish Democracy”.

    One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called ‘Irish Democracy,’ the silent dogged resistance, withdrawal and truculence of millions of ordinary people than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.

    You guys leave if you want, I’m staying.

  10. What JDM said.

    Half of my ancestors are descended from Vikings. Another quarter, lowland Scots white trash.

    Someday I may walk away. Damned if I’m running.

    And really, what is life without a fight?

  11. ““Our economy cannot expand based on, white, B+, Minnesota-born citizens.”
    The odd things is that Dayton was about as close as you could get to grade B or lower Minnesotan — if he had no money. Legacy admit to Yale, where he majored in psychology. Wanted to teach in an inner city NY School out of college, and the only way he could get hired was to make a hefty contribution to his employer.

  12. Bosshoss429
    Yes, Morrison County also passed a large increase in 2023. Still I would make a few points.
    1. In Hennepin county I had no influence as a voter. Out here my voice is taken seriously.
    2. Hennepin county is facing even larger tax increases and I know this from the inside.
    3. My taxes are still way lower than they were in Minneapolis for a bigger house on a bigger lot with lakeshore. And the police respond and potholes get fixed…it’s amazing what good local government can do.

  13. ^ I luv Morrison county. Hillman, Gottvald Corner, houses with shingles as siding that look like bricks, bears roaming free… MN’s Tennessee 😉

  14. Have Liberals thought this through?

    You wrote this with tongue in cheek, yes?

  15. Seven years until I retire. It won’t be in Mn. Right now. Western Wisconsin is the plan. Maybe earlier because working remote is getting easier.

    The shit show that is going to happen in two to four years in Minnesota will be ugly..

  16. I am about 7 years out from retirement as well. I want to leave, too. I understand why it makes sense to stay and fight if you love Minnesota, but I am not a native and the only thing keeping us here are family obligations. After those obligations are completed, there’s no reason to stay.

  17. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 05.10.23 : The Other McCain

  18. A number of factors influenced my decision to leave Minnesota after living here since age 18: family, climate for example. Not far behind was the political insanity, the high taxes, degradation of education, obliteration of standards based on achievement and not the fools errand of diversity, inclusion, equity (DIE.)

  19. The physical benefit of living among your own people, of not greeting each dawning day learning of some new unwholesome, dehumanizing, debilitating debauchery that degenerate scumbags did yesterday, while you were out busting your ass to pay for it all, cannot be overstated.

    The worst thing that happened to me this year was learning turkey tags are no longer sent with deer tags as a free bonus. Gotta pay $5 for 5 of those suckers now.

    I’m literally shaking.

    On the other hand, my neighbor sold me the 1/2 acre I need to maintain my property’s tax status as agricultural after the county removes 1 acre for the house. And sold it to me for a pittance.

    Try and get a Norwegian to do that! 😂

    Keeps my tax burden for the land at $11 a year. That’s not a typing error.

    He said it ain’t nothin; did it because we’re friends and he’s grateful to have us around. Our dogs all like one other, too.

    We’re happier and healthier than we’ve ever been. And I believe that will add at least 10 years to our lives.

  20. The physical benefit of living among your own people, of not greeting each dawning day learning of some new unwholesome, dehumanizing, debilitating debauchery that degenerate scumbags did yesterday, while you were out busting your ass to pay for it all, cannot be overstated.

    The worst thing that happened to me this year was learning turkey tags are no longer sent with deer tags as a free bonus. Gotta pay $5 for 5 of those suckers now.

    I’m literally shaking.

    On the other hand, my neighbor sold me the 1/2 acre I need to maintain my property’s tax status as agricultural after the county removes 1 acre for the house. And sold it to me for a pittance.

    Try and get a Norwegian to do that! 😂

    Keeps my tax burden for the land at $11 a year. That’s not a typing error.

    He said it ain’t nothin; did it because we’re friends and he’s grateful to have us around. Our d0gs all like one other, too.

    We’re happier and healthier than we’ve ever been. And I believe that will add at least 10 years to our lives.

  21. “The shit show that is going to happen in two to four years in Minnesota will be ugly..”

    ‘Going’ to happen, FISCH? You mean this is just the warm up? 😱

  22. passout76,
    Good situation.
    From my friends and their neighbors observations, that isn’t the case in Crow Wing. They say the roads are maintained, but there are a couple of transplants from the Twin Cities leftist cabal that have got themselves elected to county positions and are trying to make it the next Hennepin.

  23. If any of you are considering moving to either of the Carolinas, I have a great realtor for you to work with. Her husband is an old customer of mine and when he got a huge buyout check after Dell bought his company, they moved to Charlotte. I’ll work with Mitch to get us in touch.

  24. I can understand fighting for your neighbors…but my neighbors all plant their BLM, All Are Welcome, and Angie Craig signs. I’ve had beer and BBQ with them. They’re nice enough – but I’d never count on them to stand up for me or my liberty, or see through the unbridled nincompoopery of the prevailing political doctrines and policies. I may very well go somewhere more amenable and try to build new walls against the encroachment, but this place – like the 3rd Precinct – is lost. I hope to leave before they take me with it.

  25. Boss, Charlotte is pretty conservative as far as large cities go, and there is no chaos going on. But it’s the destination of choice for leftist scum escaping from NY and NJ, and they are having the expected effect. Beyond that, it’s crazy crowded up there (and Raleigh – Durham)

    My office is in Huntersville. If I was required to go there with any regularity, I’d be finding another job.

    (Now that I think of it, the only time I get upset at all anymore is when I see a car with a NJ or NY tag on it…means they’re not passing through.)

  26. ‘Right-wing extremist Tucker Carlson’….GOOD EFFING LORD, the media just are motherfokking liars. Detest them including ALL OF YOU AT KSTP-KMSP-WCCO-KARE11. And I never even watch you, I just hear of your obnoxious bias.

  27. Moved to Minnesota in 1987, left in 2021. Glad I did. Last MN tax return filed in March or April of ’22.

    Dallas is far from perfect, but not spiraling into madness like St. Paul and Minneapolis.

  28. Mr D, W/S NCarolina is a really nice area. It’s smaller than Charlotte, and more conservative, even though there are a lot of colleges around it. Old Salem is a fun destination.

    I live about 15 miles from Greenville, as the crow flies. Its a beautiful city, although it is becoming infested with leftist reprobates from California and Northern shithole cities. House prices in the city proper are insane. The downtown is probably the loveliest I’ve ever seen.

    It also has a wonderful Confederate history museum!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.