Now in NJ we’re in stage 3 - the end stage: Americans are fleeing (following employers in a mass exodus from the state), and they are being replaced by trafficked foreigners bolstered by all sorts of government aid to create a pseudo-economy based on nothing more than wealth redistribution. The government worker caste is our upper middle class, while McJobs or unemployment are increasingly the norm. We recently elected a Dem governor who pledged to raise taxes (before the election!), so we’ll continue as the highest-taxed state in the country; the election showed a real tipping point had been reached, where taxpayers were outnumbered/outvoted by “takers”.
You just described NYS, too.