Blue Strongholds Lose Hundreds Of Billions In Income As Americans Flock To Red States

Americans moving out of deep blue states have taken with them hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of personal income, while red strongholds are brimming with new economic activity, according to a new database.

Former Trump economic advisor Steve Moore and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin announced the release of a new database on Thursday from Unleash Prosperity, a nonprofit that advocates supply-side economics. The database, Vote With Your Feet, tracked the domestic migration of Americans from the decade of 2012-2022.

Using largely IRS data, Vote With Your Feet provides information on the movement of people within the United States and breaks the migration down in terms of aggregated gross income (AGI) either gained or lost as people move between states. The database also features a tool to determine which political party, Republicans or Democrats, controlled each state each year of the decade.

The tool shows that over the course of the decade, deep blue strongholds lost hundreds of billions of dollars in AGI. New York suffered the worst loss, tallying a drain of over $111 billion in AGI from people leaving the state. California came in second, losing just over $102 billion in AGI.

Illinois (minus $63 billion), New Jersey (minus $31 billion), and Massachusetts (minus $19 billion) rounded out the top five biggest losers. All five states throughout the decade were controlled either entirely or mostly by Democrats in the governors’ seats and legislatures.

Those losses also corresponded with heavy losses in population, as well. New York and California again logged the worst performances, losing roughly 1.8 million and 1.6 million people, respectively.

While Americans flooded out of deep blue states, red states led by Florida and Texas were seeing a surge of new people and wealth, according to the data set. In terms of AGI, Florida took the spot of most growth, earning $196 billion more over the course of the decade due to positive net migration into the state.

Texas followed with an increase in AGI of $54 billion over the course of the decade. The other top performing states included Arizona ($30 billion), North Carolina ($28 billion), and South Carolina ($28 billion).

Every state in the top five of extra AGI earned through domestic migration was controlled largely or entirely by Republicans from 2012 to 2022.

Of the top AGI states, Florida led with net migration, as well, with nearly 1.6 million extra people flocking to the state over the course of the decade. The rest of the top five in population migration tracked closely with the top five in AGI, except North Carolina at 521,000 brought in more people than Arizona at 483,000.