The Patriot Post® · One Decade, Trillions in Interstate Wealth Transfers

Following up on a topic I explored last week, a group called Unleash Prosperity put out an analysis of wealth being transferred — and to no one’s surprise (except perhaps those who govern the states in question, who believe they’re still on the gravy train), it looked bad for the blue states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

Promoting it as “the biggest wealth transfer in history,” the group pored over IRS data from 2012-23 to determine that the biggest winners in the prosperity sweepstakes were Florida, Texas, Arizona, and the Carolinas. On the other hand, the losers were New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. In general, wealth moved south and west from the Northeast and Rust Belt to states along the Gulf Coast and the southern border. While partisan politics played a significant role, it wasn’t foolproof: among the Harris states, Colorado and Washington did quite well, while Trump-backing Ohio and Pennsylvania still bled billions in capital over the period.

Regrettably absent from the Unleash Prosperity analysis, though, were the demographics of those who escaped. Being of a certain age, I’m aware that many in my peer group of “Generation Jones” and Rust Belt background simply got tired of just wintering in warmer climes and decided to make the move full-time. They don’t call Florida “God’s waiting room” for nothing, and it’s not unfair to say much of the loss from states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania comes from just that group. But don’t just take my word for it: “The figures point to a broader movement of wealth in the US from the traditional hubs of industry in the Northeast, the Rust Belt and the Midwest to sunnier states in the South and Southwest,” reports the New York Post.

Yet as the study’s authors ask, reiterating the point of last week’s article, “So as blue states lose taxpayers, what is their strategy? As many as 10 blue states are contemplating raising their income or wealth taxes. It reminds us of the comedy routine of the Three Stooges on a rickety boat that is taking on water, so they drill a hole in the bottom to get the water out.” (Funny thing: Three Stooges is my pet name for the congressional representation of my adopted home state of Delaware. Yet it’s one of the blue-state winners because thousands of refugees from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland have sold their overpriced homes and retired to the beach here, pocketing capital gains because housing here is still significantly less expensive. That is why I question the extent of the study.)

These blue states are attracting one element, though: the group that is more dependent on government. It becomes a vicious circle in which the wealthy move out, only to be replaced by someone with far less means. The Post cites “hedge fund titans” Ken Griffin and Marc Rowan as those among the group who will be moving jobs out of New York, but those workers will be replaced by others who are much lower on the economic ladder and attracted by the “free” goodies being offered by politicians like Zohran Mamdani.

It’s a trend as old as mankind, beginning with the first cave dweller who learned that the hunting was better in the next valley over and opted to relocate. In the here and now, though, people are discovering that government welcomes you in some places, while in others it treats you as a golden goose to be exploited, laying eggs at its behest to the point of exhaustion. While the study covers an 11-year period, $2 trillion of transfer over that timeframe is still a whole lot of cash that’s no longer there to fulfill the fever dreams of blue-state leftists who would love to concoct things like “free” healthcare or a universal basic income from money grabs like a tax on billionaires. You can’t spend what you don’t have, and thankfully, right now, Uncle Sam isn’t in the mood for giving.

Instead, because billionaires and others have voted with their feet, that money is in the right hands, improving the lives of those who actually earned it, rather than being extorted from taxpayers.