This is getting ugly.
California, once seen as the epicenter of the tech industry, is a haunt of its former glory. Tax policies, crime, and record-breaking homelessness have revealed the blue state’s incompetencies fueling the exodus.
In 2020, California’s state population declined for the first time since it was founded in 1850. At the time, the governor blamed COVID-19 deaths, a declining birth rate, and a reduction in immigration as the reason the state’s population decreased by more than 182,000.
This year shows that while these factors inflated the state’s declining population, more people are leaving the state, which is only compounded by fewer people moving to it.
At the end of September 2021, a study found that migration to the state had decreased by 38% and that residents leaving the state had increased by 12%. In the last decade alone, nearly 1 million people have left California.
These figures are unsurprising given California’s tax policies. Tesla officially moved its headquarters to Texas in response to the tax policies. Disney also has plans to move 2,000 employees to Florida’s “business-friendly climate.”
Beyond corporations, homelessness and crime could also be impacting residents’ decisions to stay or go. Last month Gov. Gavin Newsom allowed 14 suspects to go free according to the state’s zero bail policy. This move is unlikely to restore faith in the state’s ability to handle rising crime rates.