Free Republic

New census data shows San Francisco has many fewer service workers than before the pandemic and continues to lose residents who haven’t gone to college. San Francisco continues to lose residents who haven’t attended college, according to newly released census data. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of San Franciscans ages 25 or older with a high school degree or less fell from 144,000 to 142,000, contributing to a 14% decline during the past three years. That’s far higher than the city’s estimated 8% overall loss of 25 and older adults during that period. In contrast, the U.S. overall only...

If you’re a California resident and a parent, you really ought to leave the state now. On Friday, the California Assembly passed AB 957, which means that a parent who doesn’t “affirm” their child’s “gender identity” could lose custody of that child. AB 957 amends state Family Code to include “a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child.” The bill is now headed for Gov. Newsom’s desk, where he will most certainly sign it. A recent comprehensive study found that there is no medical benefit for...

Las Vegas is the most popular location for relocating home buyers nationwide, topping Redfin’s list for the first time—with Californians making up the largest group of new residents in the Southern Nevada hot spot, according to a study by the national real estate group.“Buyers with the freedom and inclination to relocate are choosing Las Vegas largely because their money goes a long way there: Its typical home sells for $412,000, less than half the price of a home in Los Angeles, the most common origin for buyers moving to Las Vegas,” Redfin stated in a report published last month. The...

'Defund the police!' they yelled in 2020, that famous summer of love: They did that. Now they're discovering -- the hard way -- that they're actually defunding themselves. According to the New York Post:A giant, sucking sound is coming out of Wall Street — and it’s siphoning staggering sums of money out of the Big Apple while handing business to Florida and other states farther south.Nearly 160 Wall Street firms have moved their headquarters out of New York since the end of 2019, taking nearly $1 trillion — yes, that’s trillion with a “T” — in assets under management with...

Ah, San Francisco. The news just keeps getting worse every time they turn around. As of April this year, downtown office vacancies had already reached an astonishing 30%.The news and the numbers are grim for Downtown San Francisco’s office market—and no one can say with any certainty where the bottom is.In the first quarter of the year, office vacancies were the highest ever recorded, according to real estate broker CBRE. The firm estimated a 29.5% vacancy rate last quarter, substantially higher than rates seen during the dot-com bust and Great Recession and a seven-fold increase from the start of 2020.Real...

Back in May, State Farm had stepped out of the California home insurance market after losing $4 billion in the state in 2021 alone. It turns out that was just the start of a broader trend.State Farm, which insures more homeowners in California than any other company, announced in May that it would stop accepting applications for property and casualty insurance in the state (but would keep selling auto insurance). A week after State Farm’s move, Allstate, California’s No. 4 property and casualty insurer, confirmed by email that it had “paused” selling new home, condominium and commercial insurance policies in...

The recent exodus of staff from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign appears to have shocked some with expert knowledge of political campaigns as the Republican looks to rest his drive for the White House. The Republican's campaign has cut roughly a third of its staff, or 38 people, as part of an effort aimed at getting DeSantis' presidential bid back on track but the decision has raised questions. Long-time DeSantis staffer Kyle Lamb has been revealed as one of the 38 people who've been let go by the campaign, a decision that was met with surprise by Peter Schorsch,...

The Florida Chamber of Commerce might just have a message for the five states sending the most high earners to the Sunshine State, even if it’s a sure thing they’ll never listen. It’s one thing to read dry news reports about how residents of states like New York and California have been losing residents to Ron DeSantis’ Florida. Despite cries of “KILLER!” from the Left and the media (but I repeat myself), Florida was one of the first states to fully end the idiotic COVID-19 lockdowns. Between that, no personal income tax, low regulation, and schools that are being drop-kicked...

One in three Seattle residents are relocating out of the city due to public safety concerns over daily crimes and high cost of living prices, according to a Seattle Times/Suffolk University poll published in June. About 33% of Seattle residents surveyed said they were seriously considering moving out of the city. Sixty-seven percent said they were not. The poll of 500 residents was conducted by phone from June 12-16, with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. Among the residents who say they are considering leaving, 37% blamed rising housing costs, and 34% cited public safety as their primary...

Today the LA Times published the results of a poll taken earlier this month in California. The poll found that most people who live there are happy about it but at the same time fully 40% were thinking about leaving.About 70% of residents said they are happy living here, a new statewide poll shows, crediting the state’s diversity, economic opportunities and an enjoyable lifestyle as reasons to stick around.Yet large swaths of residents are also considering packing up and leaving. Many also believe that the state is headed in the wrong direction, and are anxious about the direction of the...

After the week that was, there’s no longer any doubt: The Israeli government is a closed institution whose inmates have seized ... Can't get to the body of the text anymore. Earlier, it was easy. Maybe after one view you get a paywall. So below is the first comment by a reader. I assume the rest of you can still access the text.

Is the American Dream dead? A disturbing new TIPP poll suggests something like it, with the young most inclined to want to leave the country, fueled by financial stress. According to TIPP:Over one in five Americans express a strong desire to permanently move to another country if given the opportunity, according to a recent Golden/TIPP Poll of 1,480 Americans nationwide.Financial considerations significantly drive this desire.Young adults exhibit the strongest yearning. Interestingly, Democrats and liberals are more inclined to leave, while Republicans and conservatives hold a contrasting sentiment.The online survey was conducted from May 3 to 5. The survey’s credibility interval...

Not too long ago, San Francisco was still a remarkably beautiful city, although even then it could change on a dime. One could be in the midst of a leisurely stroll down a gorgeous street filled with chic cafes, turn a corner, and find oneself without warning in the middle of a large crowd of menacing homeless drug addicts. Now, after decades of far-Left misrule that has picked up speed in the wake of the COVID hysteria, the city’s dirty, degrading, and dangerous areas are growing rapidly and taking the whole place over, and the city’s remaining sane people are...

Exit, Lori Lightfoot; enter, Brandon Johnson — and the song remains the same. Or does it?It’s hard to imagine conditions in Chicago getting more desperate than under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but new Mayor Brandon Johnson — in office less than a week, as I write — is already doing his damnedest to make everyday life and business survival in one of the country’s most iconic cities even worse.But imagine, we must.As reported by The New York Post, the iconic Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) opened in 1898, only 27 years after the infamous Great Chicago Fire. Proud Chicagoans heralded the...

If folks who had the means hadn’t left Chi-Town yet, get ready for the tax base to bleed my friends.Gooderer and harderer doesn’t begin to cover the good times they’ve voted in for themselves.The new Chicago mayor, long-time teachers’ union hack Brandon Johnson, had already raised the ire of the biggest local newspaper this morning with his want-ad for a deputy mayor.I don’t know what the Chicago Tribune thought they were getting with this guy, but they seem surprised and kind of pissed about it all the same.Editorial: On Brandon Johnson’s first day, he puts out a disastrous job description...

Though retail chains fleeing woke cities in solidly blue states like California for safer areas is nothing new, the announcements just keep on coming and at an especially inconvenient times for Democrats as the 2024 election campaign season heats up.The latest entrant into the “let’s get the hell outta Dodge” movement is Nordstrom department store, which confirmed Tuesday that they were shuttering two San Francisco locations due to “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market” and how they have “changed dramatically” in recent years:The retailer confirmed the closures on Tuesday. In an email to employees, the company’s chief stores...

The Presbyterian Center, a building belonging to Presbyterian Church (USA) located in Louisville, Kentucky. | PCUSA Presbyterian Church (USA) lost more than 100 congregations and over 53,000 members in 2022, reflecting the yearslong trend of decline for the mainline Protestant denomination.The PCUSA Office of the General Assembly released its annual statistics for 2022 this week, which found that the denomination dropped from having approximately 1.193 million members to approximately 1.140 million members.Additionally, PCUSA saw the number of member congregations decline from 8,813 in 2021 to 8,705, as well as their number of ministers drop from 18,458 in 2021 to...

One of the most astonishing things about the mass flight from blue states is just how blase the ruling leftists are about it. There's no crisis, there's nothing to see here. This, as they seek ever greater heights of national power.The Wall Street Journal's editorial page has an excellent non-subscription piece on just how bad it's gotten:Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker shrugged last year after several high-profile corporations left his state. “Countless companies are choosing Illinois as their home,” Mr. Pritzker said. Then why does a new Internal Revenue Service report show an accelerating taxpayer exodus from Illinois and other high-tax...

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker shrugged last year after several high-profile corporations left his state. “Countless companies are choosing Illinois as their home,” Mr. Pritzker said. Then why does a new Internal Revenue Service report show an accelerating taxpayer exodus from Illinois and other high-tax states?

Illinois, New York and California continued their streak as the nation’s biggest losers of residents and their wealth to other states, according to a Wirepoints analysis of newly-released Internal Revenue Service migration data. Texas and Florida continued to be the nation’s big winners.The latest IRS state-by-state migration data is based on tax returns filed in 2020 and 2021, covering taxpayers (tax filers and their dependents) who moved from one state to another between 2019 and 2020 (see appendix for changes in our reporting methodology). Florida, the nation’s perennial winner, gained in 2020 the most net people, 256,000, and the most...