A recent report from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) has revealed which states are seeing taxpayers leave and arrive most frequently.
Why It Matters
Changes in migration patterns—both where people are leaving and where they’re arriving—can have implications for state economies, housing markets, politics and urban planning.
What To Know
According to the taxpayer advocacy organization’s report—based on Internal Revenue Service migration data from 2021 to 2022—the states adding new residents at the fastest clip are Florida, which welcomes someone new about every two minutes and nine seconds, followed by Texas at roughly every two minutes and 53 seconds.
North Carolina is next, gaining a resident about every six minutes and 21 seconds, while South Carolina adds one around every seven minutes and 30 seconds. Tennessee rounds out the top group, with a new resident arriving approximately every eight minutes and 42 seconds, according to the data.
On the flip side, the report found that California was losing residents the fastest, with one leaving every one minute and 44 seconds.
The five biggest population losers also include New York, which sees an out-mover roughly every two minutes and 23 seconds. Illinois follows with a resident departing about every six minutes and four seconds, while Massachusetts loses one around every 11 minutes and 38 seconds. New Jersey completes the bottom five, with an emigrant leaving approximately every 14 minutes and 14 seconds, according to the report.
The NTUF describes itself as a nonpartisan research and educational organization. Newsweek reached out to the NTUF for comment on the report via email on Monday.
What People Are Saying
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation said in the report: “Migration between states is the ultimate expression of revealed preferences — while many politicians and pundits may claim that tax-and-spend policies are what Americans want, the reality is that, year after year, there is steady movement from high-tax states to more fiscally responsible ones. Taxpayers want to live in states that do not treat them as endless sources of funding for politicians’ pet projects.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen if the trends highlighted in NTUF’s report will continue.
Separately, Newsweek has also mapped the U.S. Americans are most expected to move to in 2026, according to a moving forecast from moveBuddah.
This forecast suggested that Knoxville in Tennessee tops the country for expected in-migration, drawing an estimated 1.61 new arrivals for every resident who moves out, giving it the highest in-to-out ratio of any U.S. city reviewed.
