New York Governor Kathy Hochul flew to Palm Beach last month to beg wealthy New Yorkers to come home and pay her taxes.
Now the IRS just published the data that explains why she had to beg.
What that data shows about every blue state in America is something Democrat politicians have spent years pretending isn't happening.
New York Lost $660 Billion in the Biggest Blue State Wealth Exodus in American History
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity pulled eleven years of IRS migration data – 2012 through 2023 – and the verdict is this: $2 trillion in cumulative adjusted gross income has left blue states and moved to red states.
That figure is larger than the GDP of most countries on earth.
New York leads every state in the country with $660 billion in adjusted gross income gone.
California lost $503 billion.
Illinois lost $399 billion.
New Jersey dropped $212 billion.
Maryland and Massachusetts each lost more than $100 billion.
Florida gained $1.3 trillion – the single largest income gain of any state in the country.
Texas added $371 billion.
South Carolina gained $187 billion.
Tennessee picked up $112 billion.
The pattern is not complicated: states run by Democrat governors who tax everything that moves are emptying out, and states run by Republicans who leave people alone are filling up.
Ten Blue States Respond to IRS Migration Data by Planning More Tax Hikes
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity described the blue-state response with a phrase that should be framed on the wall of every statehouse in America.
"It reminds us of the comedy routine of the Three Stooges on a rickety boat that is taking on water," they wrote, "so they drill a hole in the bottom to get the water out."
As many as ten blue states are currently contemplating raising their income or wealth taxes – the exact policy that drove $2 trillion across state lines in the first place.
Hochul is fighting New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani's demand for a 2% income tax hike on New Yorkers earning over a million dollars – not because she opposes taxing the rich in principle, but because she knows the people she needs to pay for her programs are already leaving.
She said it herself in March at a Politico summit in Albany: "I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state."
The tax base is eroded.
The people who funded the programs left.
And Mamdani's answer is to film a video outside a billionaire's apartment and demand more.
New York City Went Bankrupt Once Already When Its Tax Base Collapsed
New York nearly defaulted in 1975 – driven by years of overspending, rising debt, and a shrinking tax base as residents and businesses left for places where it was cheaper to operate.
By the end of that decade, nearly a million people had left the city – a population loss that took twenty years to recover.
The lesson was supposed to be permanent: you cannot spend money you do not have on programs your remaining taxpayers cannot sustain.
Ken Griffin – Citadel's founder, whose firm recently told CNBC it is shifting investment toward Miami as a direct consequence of Mamdani's Tax Day targeting video – put it plainly: New York "does not welcome success."
Apollo Global Management, a $900 billion firm that paid $1.28 billion in state and city taxes last year alone, announced it will open a second headquarters in Florida or Texas.
One percent of New York City taxpayers generate half of all income tax revenue.
That one percent is now weighing Griffin's math against Mamdani's video and making decisions.
The IRS data runs through 2023 – two years before Mamdani took office.
Every Democrat running a blue state knows what comes next.
Their answer, in ten states and counting, is to raise taxes on the people still left.
Sources:
- Anthony Blair, "Blue states have bled $2 trillion in wealth to red states in the last decade," New York Post, May 8, 2026.
- Committee to Unleash Prosperity, "The Biggest Wealth Transfer in U.S. History," committeetounleashprosperity.com, May 7, 2026.
- Alex Nitzberg, "Hochul pleads for wealthy New Yorkers to return from red states like Florida, Texas as tax base 'eroded,'" Fox News, March 19, 2026.
- "Ken Griffin: Citadel expanding in Miami in response to NYC mayor Mamdani's 'poor taste' tax video," CNBC, May 6, 2026.
- "Billionaire bigwigs launch NYC exodus after Mamdani's 'tax the rich' antics," New York Post, May 7, 2026.