The Media is pushing a “well I guess people aren’t leaving because of taxes” narrative over the past 24 hours, Save Jerseyans, after word broke on Monday that New Jersey wasn’t losing a U.S. House seat in the wake of the 2020 cenus.
Think about it. It says everything about the political/media establishment that they’re celebrating NOT losing a house seat as if it’s some sort of perverse validation of Trenton’s reckless fiscal regime.
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We won’t get the full data set until August, but I’m willing to bet that the final picture is going to disappoint our favorite Leftist trolls.
Post Office change of address data which was reported shortly before the census’s top line numbers dropped confirms the obvious: a shift was already underway from some larger urban centers like New York City to smaller metros. Rural areas followed a similar trend which is the reason why states like Ohio have been empty out for years now.
Meanwhile, young Americans rejecting huge cities and sleepy rural communities are moving southwest.
We know both New York State and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania lost a house seat each in this census along with California, and it’s possible we’ll see that NYC and Philly specifically lost some steam (by the way: wages had stalled for middle-earners in Philly pre-pandemic which is not a hopeful sign). Interestingly, because of how the census works (counting your residence as where you were as of April 1, 2020, the full effect of the pandemic isn’t even accounted for in these numbers).
Even without a full COVID-19 count, the Sunbelt is winning. The Midwest and the coastal states are losing or stagnating (which is a different species of failure). California is in meltdown mode. Overall, lower tax red states outperformed higher tax blue states. There’s a reason why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is emerging as an early favorite for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Did the Garden State really buck the trend in spite of its hideous tax climate?
Again, we need to wait for the final data dump, but that’s probably a self-interested misread of a complex situation.
New Jersey’s saving grace this time around may’ve been its proximity to NYC and Philly refugees. Suburban real estate prices tell you all you need to know about what’s happening, and I can attest to the NY license plates I’ve seen in my own neck of the woods. Why live in an over-priced urban center during a pandemic when you can work remotely from suburban Morris or Burlington counties? If I were a betting man, a combination of immigration (some of it illegal) and fleeing fomer Philly/NYC residents saved our state’s bacon. This time.
It’s not that high taxes aren’t holding back New Jersey; we all know businesses that have run for sunnier, cheaper states in very recent history. It’s that some of our populous urban neighbors are becoming so dangerous and expensive that N.J. seems like the better option short of leaving the region if leaving the region doesn’t work for you. New Jersey is expensive, yet there’s also space relative to the cities and, at least in 2020, few riots (with the exception of some looting at the A.C. outlets).
Americans are fleeing New Jersey to places like Florida and North Carolina. They’re being replaced by people fleeing places that they believe are worse than New Jersey. For now.
Still, while I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Garden State’s “victory” is likely to prove short-lived. It may prove more of a stay of execution.
Remember: it’s Phil Murphy’s stated aspiration to turn New Jersey into the California of the East Coast. California’s fate may only be one gubernatorial reelection away.
Young suburbanites with liberal social ideals (we’ve had a strong one for years now with the general exception of the COVID-19 downturn).
What happens when the economy crashes like it did in 2008? Just two years before New Jersey lost a U.S. House seat in the 2010 census?
What happens when the remote trend continues and you can work for a Philadelphia company from the Atlanta suburbs? Or a New York marketing outfit via Austin?
The ultimate lesson of the 2020 census might be that you can get away with poor fiscal mismangement – for a time – when the economy is solid and your immediate neighbors are less attractive than you are.
Then things get real very quickly. Ask Gavin Newsom.
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