Free Republic

While New York and California are losing population, states like South Carolina and Alabama are not only gaining residents at a record rate, but are also experiencing rapid economic growth.AdvertisementA recent JL Partners poll captures a shift in perception: 36 percent of Americans now expect the South to lead economic growth over the next decade — far ahead of the West Coast (23 percent), Northeast (21 percent), and Midwest (19 percent). This is quite a transformation. For as long as anyone can remember, the South seemed to be a byword for backwardness. Since the late nineteenth century, American commerce and...

Los Angeles County saw the largest decline of any county in the United States in 2025, according to new census data published on March 26. Nearly 54,000 people moved out of L.A. County between July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025, U.S. Census data shows. The decline is part of an ongoing trend. In 2020 L.A. County was estimated to have more than 10 million residents. As of 2025, the county was thought to have just under 9.7 million residents. It’s unclear where the fleeing Angelinos are moving. However, the neighboring counties of Riverside and San Bernardino saw a combined...

As New York City's filthy commie mayor struggles to fill a $5.4 billion budget gap with a massive soak-the-rich-then-soak-them-some-more tax hike, trillion-dollar asset management fund Apollo Global Management says it will open a secondary headquarters in Florida or Texas. "Apollo expects most of its future hiring to be in the second hub rather than Manhattan," according to the New York Post, surprising literally no one."The reality is that you can’t propose budget after budget that vilifies employees and then be surprised when they decide to go somewhere else," Partnership for New York City CEO Steve Fulop told the paper."New York...

Most of the country saw population growth slow down or even reverse in 2025, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals. Of the country’s more than 3,000 counties, about 80% saw declining population or slower growth between July 2024 and July 2025. Counties that were already shrinking also saw that trend accelerate. One major reason for the drop, according to the agency, was a significant decline in international immigration to the U.S. in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. The biggest swings were along the U.S.-Mexico border. Laredo, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and El Centro, California, all...

⏱ 3 minute read Massachusetts is confronting growing fiscal and demographic challenges as state leaders grapple with population changes, tax policy, and shifting migration patterns. Recent data points to slowing population growth, driven by a combination of reduced immigration and domestic outmigration. According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, cities like Boston saw strong population increases between 2023 and 2024, but that growth lowered significantly the following year. Analysts attribute the shift to tighter federal immigration enforcement alongside a continued trend of residents relocating to other states, particularly those with lower costs of living. Declining Tax Base Raises Concerns...

Gov. Ron DeSantis joins 'Hang Out with Sean Hannity' to discuss the massive migration to Florida and why blue states like New York and California are facing declining populations. For many Americans, moving to Florida isn't just about the weather — it’s about escaping a "spendthrift" government that fritters away taxpayer dollars. Gov. Ron DeSantis told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the state’s massive 1.4 million Republican voter registration lead is driven by results: a 50-year low crime rate, top rankings in education freedom and a refusal to "hunt" down residents for income tax. From police officers fleeing "demagoguing" mayors...

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick says he has traded California for Texas, joining a growing list of billionaires abandoning the state as lefty lawmakers push for a one-off tax their wealth. Appearing on TPBN to discuss his robotics startup Atoms, Kalanick told hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays he relocated to Austin on December 18. California lawmakers and activists are currently pushing a proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, which could appear on the state’s November 2026 ballot. The measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on fortunes exceeding $1 billion and would apply to people who were California residents as of...

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is ditching his longtime residence in Seattle for Florida, just as Washington Democrats are nearing the finish line on a proposed "millionaires tax." Schultz, who served as board director of the coffee chain until 2023, said in a statement on social media that he and his wife are moving to Miami as part of the "retirement phase" of their lives. Schultz, who has lived in Seattle for more than four decades, purchased a $44 million penthouse in Surfside, Fla., according to reports, and will relocate his private family office to Miami. Schultz, who owns roughly...

Washington state Democrats are magicians! In the time it takes to say abracadabra, they made millions upon millions of dollars disappear just like that!As if it weren’t bad enough that Seattle is under the reign of a communist mayor, statewide radical Democrats passed a bill masquerading as a “millionaire tax,” ushering in the state’s first-ever income tax.As I reported in a recent West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, this "millionaire tax" was always going to change — POOF! — into a thousandaire income tax, and the Washington Policy Center has the email receipts. But now, as night follows day, as thunder...

Nature documentaries abound, covering the various species as they embark on their epic migratory journeys. From bird flocks to wildebeasts on the savannah to even monarch butterflies, these travels and travails are captured in dramatic fashion. Currently, another group shift is taking place in the corporate world, where a growing number of companies are pulling up stakes and seeking out more verdant economic landscapes, escaping harsh environments wrought by Democrat tax policies. It is enough to warrant its own Netflix documentary. Have David Attenborough narrating the footage of these fiscal nomads, and title it “March of the Corporate Titans”. In...

Palantir announced Tuesday it has moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami – joining a slew of tech firms fleeing to South Florida as a growing number of industry leaders deem it the new Silicon Valley. Tech giants have been increasingly flocking to Florida from business hubs like New York and California in pursuit of lower taxes, warm weather and safer neighborhoods. “We have moved our headquarters to Miami, Florida,” Palantir wrote in a brief post on X Tuesday morning. The company did not immediately respond to inquiries about its reason for the move. Palantir was founded in Palo Alto,...

I was listening to an episode of the Rob Lowe podcast Literally!, which featured fellow actor Adam Scott. I wanted to hear the two as they bandied about their time together on the former NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. It promised to be a cool listen, as the genuine friends kicked back and discussed a variety of topics in the industry, but the host let slip a surprising nugget.He currently is the host of the Fox Network game show The Floor, and Scott was jarred when Rob let it be known that they film the program entirely in Dublin, Ireland....

You may vote red or blue, but would you rather live in a blue state or a red state? Regardless of what people do at the ballot box, newly released data from the Census Bureau overwhelmingly show people voting with their feet, leaving blue states for red states. And this is nothing new.From July 2024 to July 2025 (the latest numbers available), blue states like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts hemorrhaged their most valuable resource—people—at an alarming rate.These were the five worst states for net domestic migration, meaning more people left those states than moved in, for...

It's not hard to understand why people live in California, nor why it boomed in the decades after World War II. There are few places more blessed by God than California, even with its mudslides, wildfires, and earthquakes, which deterred not a single person from moving there. It is, in most ways, a paradise. If there was anyplace that could be said to embody the American Dream, or at least the postwar American Dream in which anybody could aspire to be middle class, it was California. New York City may be where people went to strike it big, but California...

Let's see how things are going in the communist utopia of New York, a month after Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor. Nearly two weeks after a massive winter storm hit the Big Apple, mountains of garbage line the still snow-covered streets (but not around Gracie Mansion, of course), and at least a dozen homeless people have frozen to death after Mamdani refused to force them into warming shelters despite the bitter cold. There were also blackouts, which is great when it's freezing outside.Oh, and the number of antisemitic incidents in the city has skyrocketed, and Mamdani...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that the state’s proposed wealth tax is bad economics. Newsom said he feels vindicated in opposing the proposed wealth tax after reports showed some of California’s wealthiest residents moving money and businesses out of the state, warning the measure would damage the economy and drive away investment. “This is my fear,” Newsom said in a Politico interview on Monday. “It’s just what I warned against. It’s happening.” “The evidence is in. The impacts are very real — not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people...

California lost a mind-boggling nearly $1 trillion in wealth in the past month alone thanks to fears over its proposed “Billionaire Tax,’’ according to one of the state’s wealthiest residents. The under-fire measure, which even lefty Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes, would slap a onetime 5% tax on residents worth more than $1 billion as of Jan. 1, 2026. “Collectively, the amount of Billionaire wealth that has left California in the last month (!) is now in excess of $700B,” fumed venture capitalist and former Facebook exec Chamath Palihapitiya on X on Friday. “That means the $2T of California wealth they...

California is once again at the center of a high-stakes debate over taxes, population trends and the future of the state’s economy, as a prominent tech investor warns that a new wave of residents could leave within the next year. The warning lands at a moment when official data shows modest population growth returning, even as moving companies and demographers track persistent outflows to other states. The question is not whether people are leaving, but whether policy choices in the coming months will turn a steady trickle into the kind of large-scale relocation that reshapes communities and tax bases. The...

I just wrote about some of the billionaires fleeing California to avoid the proposed "one time" wealth tax which would take 5% of everything they own. But the LA Times points out it's not just the very wealthy who are fleeing the state. Once again, California topped a list put together by U-Haul showing the most out-migration.U-Haul’s survey of the more than 2.5 million one-way trips using its vehicles in the U.S. last year showed that the gap between the number of people leaving and the number arriving was higher in California than in any other state.While the Golden State...

Over the weekend, we learned that the Golden State loses one taxpayer to another state every minute, and faces an $18 billion budget shortfall, which is $5 billion higher than was projected just a few months ago. We also learned that only now, 10 months after wildfires destroyed thousands of buildings in the Los Angeles area, has the first home been rebuilt. These stories are yet more evidence of a completely dysfunctional state captured by ideologues who couldn’t care less about the harm their policies cause. Will voters there ever learn? The National Taxpayers Union Foundation used IRS data to...