More Than One Third Of All NYC Residents Consider Leaving

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

The cost of living in New York City is so steep that in the past 4 months, 35% have considered leaving.

High Income Flight

A Siena College study shows 44 Percent of Six-Figure Earners in NYC Have Considered Relocating.

The study also states 80% of those living in the city make $100,000 or more, and that translates to 35.2% of all residents.

Key Findings

1. Of New York City residents who earn $100,000 or more annually, 44% have considered moving out of the city in  the past four months. Looking ahead, 37% say that it is at least somewhat likely that they will not be living in the city within the next two years.

2. More than two-thirds (69%) are “not confident that New York City will be back to normal anytime soon,” while just 28% believe that the city “will weather this crisis, and things will be back to normal soon.” 

3. Respondents from Staten Island are especially pessimistic: 89% say that they are not confident in a timely return to normalcy. 

4. Some 80% of New Yorkers earning six-figure salaries or higher believe that economic activity in the city will take longer than a year to recover, and just 20% say that the economy will return to normal in the next 12 months. 

5. Older respondents are more pessimistic about the recovery, with 89% of those 65 years and older expecting recovery to be more than a year away

6. Only 38% of New Yorkers surveyed said that quality of life now was excellent or good, a drop by half, from 79% before the pandemic. Most believe that the city has a long road to recovery: 69% say that it “will take longer than a year” for quality of life to return to normal.

7. 75% of respondents cited income taxes as a problem, while 72% pointed to traffic and 68% to the reliability of public transportation. 

8. The greatest concern of all was the likelihood of coronavirus spread, with 90% saying that it posed a problem for them. 

9. Among respondents with children who attend public school in New York City, more than half (53%) said that they are very concerned about sending them back to school, including 76% of black respondents. Those in the Bronx (72%) are warier of sending their children to reopened physical schools than those in Manhattan (40%). 

10. Income taxes appear to be a bigger concern for respondents than property taxes (75% to 60%, respectively, saying that these taxes are at least somewhat serious problems). Even for these New Yorkers earning six-figure salaries and above, 89% cite cost of living as a problem.

Governor Cuomo Begs Rich New Yorkers to Return

In an effort to get wealthy New Yorkers to return, Governor Andrew Cuomo says ‘Come over, I’ll cook!’

“I literally talk to people all day long who are now in their Hamptons house who also lived here, or in their Hudson Valley house, or in their Connecticut weekend house, and I say, ‘You got to come back! We’ll go to dinner! I’ll buy you a drink! Come over, I’ll cook!’

“They’re not coming back right now. And you know what else they’re thinking? ‘If I stay there, I’ll pay a lower income tax,’ because they don’t pay the New York City surcharge,” he added, noting the wealthiest 1 percent of the Empire State’s population picks up roughly 50 percent of the state’s tax burden.

NYC Mayor Says ‘I Am Not Going to Beg’

In sharp contrast to governor Cuomo, NYC mayor Bill de Blasio says ‘I Am Not Going to Beg’.

In a briefing from City Hall, de Blasio for a second day in a row sneered at Gov. Cuomo’s suggestion that the Big Apple’s ballooning deficit can only be bridged if rich people who fled at the outset of the pandemic come back and start paying taxes again.

“I am not going to beg anybody to live in the greatest city in the world.”

De Blasio also reiterated his demand for taxing wealthy New Yorkers at a higher rate and said the most “fair” period in American history was in the high-taxed aftermath of World War II.

“We saw much less income inequality,” he said. “We had the model right.”

The Right Model

De Blasio, a true progressive nutcase, wants a 90% income tax rate. 

If he tried that at the city level rather than nationally most of NYC would vacate.

Modern Income Tax

The Modern Income Tax started in 1913 at a modest 1% rate.

By 1918  it was 77% to finance WWI which the US should never have been involved in.

In the name of “fairness” President Franklin D. Roosevelt idiotically proposed a 100% tax on all incomes over $25,000.

In the wake of WWII marginal rates got as high as 94% on incomes above $200,000.

Rates have generally been falling since 1964 when the top rate was lowered to 70%.