'Great migration' continues as more Americans flee to Florida, Texas

The exodus from high-tax states continues.

A growing number of Americans are migrating from predominantly blue states with steep taxes like California and New York to red states with lower taxes like Florida and Texas, according to a Bank of America analyst note that is based on aggregated and anonymous internal customer data.

"We constructed near real-time estimates of domestic migration flows and found that pandemic migration trends are not reversing," the analysis said. Since the first quarter of 2023, the data "suggests that cities that saw a large influx of people during the pandemic have still been growing faster than other cities in recent quarters."

Among the top 23 major metropolitan areas in the country, Austin, Texas, saw the biggest influx of people during the first two years of the pandemic – as well as over the past four quarters. The net population of the Texas capital jumped by more than 1.5% at the beginning of 2023, compared to the same time one year ago.

In the two-year period from 2020 to 2022, Austin's population grew by 5%.

Tampa, Florida, meanwhile, saw its population grow by a little less than 1% in 2023, compared with a more than 2% increase the previous two years. Orlando, Florida, also notched a spot in the top three with similar growth rates to Tampa.

Neither Texas nor Florida have a state income tax.

"Bank of America data suggests Baby Boomers are relocating to Las Vegas and Tampa while Millennials prefer Austin," the analysis said. "Both groups are leaving the larger cities of San Francisco and New York."

Other cities that saw positive growth rates include Cleveland, Dallas, Charlotte in North Carolina, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

On the other end of the spectrum, San Jose, California, saw a large outflow of people over the past few years. In early 2023, the city's population slid by more than 1%, following a decline of nearly 4% the previous two years.

San Francisco, plagued by a spike in property crime, likewise experienced a drop in population, with a more than 1% drop in the first quarter of 2023 and a more than 3% decline from 2020 to 2022, according to the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center.

New York City posted the third-largest population decline, losing about 1% of its population in early 2023 and 3% the prior two years.

New York and California have some of the highest tax burdens in the country.

The findings from Bank of America echo Census Bureau data released earlier this year that indicated Republican-controlled states saw an influx of residents in 2022.

Florida saw the biggest rush of new residents with about 319,000 Americans relocating there in 2022. That amounts to a population increase of nearly 2% – well above the 0.4% national growth rate recorded in the U.S. between July 2021 and July 2022.

Other red states that led in population growth include Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arizona and Idaho.

"This population shift paints a clear picture," said Janelle Fritts, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. "People left high-tax, high-cost states for lower-tax, lower-cost alternatives."

Three of those states – including Texas, Florida and Tennessee – do not tax regular income, according to a separate analysis from the Tax Foundation, a group that advocates for lower taxes.

On the other end of the spectrum, California, New York and Illinois saw the biggest population declines in 2022. California saw its population tumble by more than 343,000 people in 2022, although New York had the overall largest decline in its population with a 0.9% drop.

"The Census data and these industry studies cannot tell us exactly why each person moved, but there is no denying a very strong correlation between low-tax, low-cost states and population growth," Fritts said. "With many states responding to robust revenues and heightened state competition by cutting taxes, these trends may only get larger."

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