For every high-income earner who moves into Illinois, two leave, according to a new study of data from the Internal Revenue Service.
Among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., that's the lowest ratio of affluent people coming to going, which is to say Illinois is the worst at keeping affluent people in the state.
It's the latest data point in the long-running story of Illinois losing people not only because of its rough winters but because of high taxes and crime. In April, Attom, a property information service, reported that Illinois again had the highest effective property taxes in 2023 at 1.88% of value.
The news is from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in San Francisco, which on July 30 published a report, "Interstate Migration of High Earners and Retirees," based on IRS data released the day before.
A chart in the report shows Illinois with the worst record of retaining people who make $200,000 or more per year and, probably just as unsurprising, Florida with the best. For every $200,000-plus earner who leaves Florida, two and three-quarters move in.
The lost income in Illinois from all out-migration, not just high earners, was about $9.85 billion in recent years, according to earlier IRS data. Based on individual tax returns filed in 2021 and 2022, the IRS reports about $19.38 billion in adjusted gross income left the state and about $9.58 billion moved in, for a net loss of $9.85 billion.
That loss has ramifications in the real estate market, the retail and restaurant industries and other sectors of the state's economy.
The Cato report's data ranking Illinois last for out-migration is for 2022, a busy year for big earners leaving the state. It was the year one of Illinois' superearners, billionaire Ken Griffin, announced he would move both his Citadel financial empire and his home address from Chicago to Miami. Also that year, both Boeing and Caterpillar moved their headquarters out of Illinois, taking an unknown number of $200,000 jobs with them.
Another to depart from Illinois in 2022 was Dan Proft, the conservative radio host and publisher who is a vocal critic of Chicago and Illinois leaders and their handling of crime and taxes. He sold his Lake Point Tower condo that year.
Proft told Crain's Chicago Business in an email at the time that "I no longer have a place in Chicago or Illinois. Nor will I until and unless the political leadership changes and that new leadership reforms the way we fund schools and structure and fund public sector pensions and in so doing reduces the usurious property taxes Illinois families pay."
It was also the year retired Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass moved over the state line to Northwest Indiana.
It's not known whether Kass was making over $200,000, but as a retiree, he's part of another group Illinois has a hard time keeping. The Cato report shows Illinois is near the bottom of the states for retention of people ages 65 and up, with a ratio of comers to goers that isn't appreciably higher than its ratio on affluent movers.
Only California and New York scored lower than Illinois on keeping senior citizens in the state.
The same two states were the worst at retaining people of all kinds in 2022. California lost a total of about 141,600 people and New York about 107,800. Illinois was third but with a far smaller loss, 45,197. Its percentage loss, about 0.35%, is approximately the same as the much more populous state of California and below New York state's 0.5%.
While senior citizens and affluent people may not overlap on all their reasons for leaving Illinois, they have at least one thing in common: they are more likely to be in a position to move. Affluent people, and in particular high-ranking executives like Griffin, can move some or all of the company, and senior citizens are generally not tied down by a job.
That is, both groups can make moving out of Illinois work.