{"id":209979,"date":"2025-09-08T10:38:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/209979\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T10:38:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:38:17","slug":"escape-from-new-york-2025-millionaire-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/209979\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape from New York, 2025 Millionaire Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, New York City prided itself on being the financial capital of the world. It\u2019s a place where money, culture, and power converge. And yet, as has been seen in San Francisco,<\/a> Chicago<\/a>, and other locations around the US<\/a>, New York is experiencing a steady exodus of millionaires and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. While some observers dismiss this as anecdotal or exaggerated, the facts paint a different picture: one with serious implications for the city\u2019s fiscal health, social fabric, and attractiveness.<\/p>\n

It is easy to forget that New York\u2019s gleaming infrastructure, vast public services, and social programs are underwritten disproportionately by a tiny number of residents. Fewer than one percent of taxpayers account for more<\/a> than 40 percent of all income tax revenue collected in the state, and a similar share in the city. Without those individuals, the ability of millions of ordinary New Yorkers to enjoy subsidized transit, robust public safety services, and cultural investments would collapse. In other words, and despite endless egalitarian rhetoric, the lifestyle of the masses is silently carried on the shoulders of the few.<\/p>\n

The scale of the loss is becoming visible. Between 2019 and 2020<\/a>, the number of New Yorkers earning between $150,000 and $750,000 fell by nearly six percent, while the number of true high earners \u2014 those making over $750,000 \u2014 dropped by nearly 10 percent, according to the city\u2019s Independent Budget Office. This erosion matters because the city\u2019s top one percent \u2014 about 41,000 filers \u2014 pay more than 40 percent of all income taxes. The top 10 percent pay about two-thirds. Which means the remaining 90 percent of taxpayers contribute only about one-third of the city\u2019s income tax revenue. When even a small share of these high earners disappears, the impact is seismic.<\/p>\n

Recent migration trends confirm<\/a> the damage. More than 125,000 New Yorkers have fled to Florida in just the past few years, carrying nearly $14 billion worth of income with them, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. About a third of those movers \u2014 more than 41,000 people \u2014 went to Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward Counties between 2018 and 2022. Those escapes alone stripped New York City of an estimated $10 billion in adjusted gross income. When money and mobility align, no amount of political rhetoric can stop people from voting with their feet.<\/p>\n

Into this fragile situation steps Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, whose mayoral primary victory has been accompanied by a platform that includes a new \u201cmillionaire\u2019s tax.\u201d His proposal would tack on an additional two-percent levy for New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year, raising the combined city and state top rate to 16.776 percent \u2014 by far the highest in the nation. Add federal obligations, and the total burden would rise to nearly 54 percent. That is not just taxation; it is confiscation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wealthy New Yorkers wouldn\u2019t even need to flee to Florida to avoid it. A short move to Westchester, Long Island, or across the Hudson to New Jersey would suffice. As the Tax Foundation has noted, \u201ca high earner doesn\u2019t need to give up the convenience of the city, they just need to move outside the five boroughs.\u201d Developers are already banding together to oppose Mamdani\u2019s rent-control platform, while Florida realtors report a surge<\/a> in inquiries from wealthy New Yorkers looking to relocate.<\/p>\n

Rather than acknowledge this delicate balance, policymakers in Albany and City Hall continue to treat the wealthy as inexhaustible resources. Each subsequent budget cycle seems to bring<\/a> fresh proposals for higher levies, justified by a reflexive invocation of \u201cfair share.\u201d For the city\u2019s most mobile taxpayers, however, there is a limit. They are increasingly concluding that enough is enough.<\/p>\n

Not to worry, though. Other US states and cities are only too happy to receive them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida has no state income tax<\/a> and a climate that, quite literally, feels like a bonus. Texas markets itself as a business-friendly, family-friendly destination where capital is welcomed<\/a> rather than penalized. The Lone Star State is even planning<\/a> its own stock exchange to fight against corporate ESG\/DEI mandates, among others. Even Connecticut, once derided as a commuter\u2019s backwater, now makes a pitch<\/a> as a calmer, lower-tax alternative just a train ride away.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just states. Municipalities from Miami to Austin to Nashville are creating entire ecosystems \u2014 schools, cultural centers, financial services clusters \u2014 designed to attract, satisfy, and retain disaffected New Yorkers. And the migration<\/a> data show that these efforts<\/a> are paying off<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most striking irony of this government-greed-driven exodus is that the very policies promoted as remedies for inequality are accelerating a new divide. On one side are jurisdictions with extractive tax regimes like New York, which are increasingly reliant on a shrinking base of wealthy residents. On the other side are \u201cmerely high-tax\u201d or moderate-tax states that calibrate their revenue needs without driving out their most productive citizens. In attempting to punish the \u201chaves\u201d in the name of the \u201chave-nots,\u201d New York is in the process of creating an even sharper divide between places where the wealthy live and places they have left behind. The intended redistribution becomes a geographic one, with capital, philanthropy, and jobs following the departing millionaires.<\/p>\n

Beyond dollars and cents, there is also a cultural cost. Wealthy New Yorkers are not just taxpayers; they are patrons of the arts, benefactors of hospitals, and funders of civic institutions. When they decamp to Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming, or elsewhere, they don\u2019t merely take their checkbooks; they take their boards, galas, and fundraising networks. The very character of New York as a city of ambition progressively dims. A city that once attracted the world\u2019s best and brightest risks becoming a place they leave once they have achieved the successes they sought.<\/p>\n

The migration of millionaires is not an abstract threat. It is an early warning sign of the consequences of fiscal imbalance and political avarice. New York can continue to chase headlines with promises of soaking the rich, or it can recognize that prosperity depends on partnership, not punishment. If it chooses the former, the flight will only accelerate, and the city may wake up one day to find that its most valuable export is no longer finance or culture, but people. Wealth, like love, does not stay long where it goes unappreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, New York City prided itself on being the financial capital of the world. It\u2019s a place…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":209980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-209979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115168248174327197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209979","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=209979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}