{"id":172006,"date":"2025-08-24T15:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/172006\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:27:10","slug":"zohran-mamdani-wants-to-tax-the-rich-they-wont-leave-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/172006\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani Wants to Tax the Rich. They Won\u2019t Leave New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tZohran Mamdani<\/a> has the penthouse crowd aflutter. The Democratic mayoral nominee\u2019s bold, simple plan to make New York<\/a> affordable for everyday citizens \u2014 freeze the rents, make buses and child care free \u2014 would be funded by a meager two percent tax hike on New York\u2019s millionaire class.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ultra-wealthy squawked back with their usual empty threat: Raise their taxes<\/a> and they\u2019ll leave, taking their fortunes \u2014 and New York City\u2019s tax base \u2014 with them. But the Big Apple didn\u2019t become the richest city in the world overnight, and if tax flight were real, history and hard data would prove it. Instead, the record is clear: Higher taxes make millionaires<\/a> flap their wings, not fly the coop.<\/p>\n

\n\tRecently, Senator Elizabeth Warren<\/a> threw a match into the nest. On CNBC, she swatted away<\/a> a host\u2019s hand-wringing about higher taxes on the wealthy: \u201cOh dear, are you worried that billionaires<\/a> are going to go hungry?\u201d Her point was unmistakable. No matter the noise, New York\u2019s millionaires aren\u2019t going anywhere. Why would they? Moving is undesirable, disruptive, and the very investments their taxes fund \u2014 from city parks to transit to cultural life \u2014 are exactly what makes New York City the capital of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe evidence for millionaire tax flight is scant. If high earners were truly fleeing high taxes, low-tax states would be swarming with millionaires. Instead, the highest concentrations of millionaires<\/a> are found in high-tax states<\/a> like Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey. And in these states, taxes levied on the highest earners have been broadly<\/a> successful<\/a>, with \u200b\u200b Massachusett\u2019s millionaire tax generating an additional<\/a> $2 billion in revenue than expected in the last year alone.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd for all the doom and gloom about a mass exodus, when tax rates did increase, millionaire populations continued to climb.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2021, when New York increased personal income tax rates for millionaires, the state\u2019s millionaire population grew<\/a> by 21 percent. In neighboring New Jersey, when the state raised taxes on high earners in 2004, only 37 millionaires<\/a> left the following year. That same year, 3,000 new millionaires were added to the state\u2019s rolls. California\u2019s 2005 millionaire tax hike had a similar effect<\/a>: The millionaire population increased by 30 percent by 2007.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tHedge fund manager Bill Ackman<\/a> has gone so far as to claim<\/a> that just \u201ca handful of successful people\u201d leaving could decimate New York\u2019s finances. In reality, it would require a significant share of the nearly 14,000 <\/a>households in Manhattan alone earning $1 million or more annually to pack up and leave to make a dent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, millionaires are less mobile <\/a>than everyone else, as only 2.4 percent of millionaires move<\/a> across state lines each year, compared to 2.9 percent of the general population. In 2022, more than 65,000 New York State residents who made low-to-middle incomes left the state<\/a>, over three times the rate of outbound migration for earners in the top one percent. And even when the wealthy do decamp<\/a>, they typically trade one high-tax zip code for another, rather than retreat to a tax haven.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMillionaires rarely relocate, not because they can\u2019t afford to, but because millionaires make decisions about where to live just like the rest of us do. Our decisions about where to reside are shaped far more by jobs, family, and quality of life than by tax rates. Surveys show<\/a> that only nine percent of interstate movers cite tax-related reasons as a major factor. If New York millionaires were truly desperate to cut costs, they could make the far easier move from Manhattan<\/a> to Jersey City<\/a> or Hoboken<\/a>, where the median home is nearly half the price. Few ever<\/a> do<\/a>, making it hard to believe they\u2019d uproot their kids, abandon business networks, and trade New York\u2019s unrivaled energy and access just to shave a few dollars off their tax bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is possible that Ackman might make good on his threat to leave New York if taxes rise, but the data says he won\u2019t have much company and will quickly be replaced<\/a>. The choice for New York isn\u2019t \u201ctax the rich or lose them.\u201d The wealthy are already there and multiplying. To truly decimate the City\u2019s finances, millionaire flight would have to surge to levels we\u2019ve never seen before, levels that similar tax hikes<\/a> have never caused. In every real-world case<\/a>, the tax dollars gained have dwarfed the dollars lost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd history isn\u2019t Mamdani\u2019s only ally; policy is, too. Mamdani\u2019s proposals would make the city more livable for working people while improving public goods \u2014 from transit to child care \u2014 that benefit everyone, including those footing a slightly higher tax bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter all, while billionaires may never ride a free city bus, they would be remiss to ignore that they, too, gain from a city that runs smoothly \u2014 one that\u2019s safe, clean, and vibrant \u2014 because the everyday people who do ride those buses are exactly who keep New York thriving, and who sustain the fortunes they\u2019re so desperate to protect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLindsay Owens is Executive Director of Groundwork Collaborative<\/a> and author for the forthcoming book, Gouged (Viking Penguin). Nia Law is the Special Assistant and Research Associate at the Groundwork Collaborative<\/a> and a graduate of Georgetown University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani has the penthouse crowd aflutter. The Democratic mayoral nominee\u2019s bold, simple plan to make New York…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":172007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,16088,244,324,30674,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,8167,618,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,258,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-172006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bill-ackman","10":"tag-billionaires","11":"tag-elizabeth-warren","12":"tag-millionaires","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-rent","20":"tag-taxes","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-wealth","28":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115084449740890742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}