
IRS map tracking the migration of Americans and their income across states - mbgaxyz
http://www.howmoneywalks.com/irs-tax-migration/
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cozzyd
Not familiar with the author's agenda, but:

1) is this just showing retirement patterns? (I.e make lots of money in a
state with higher income /cost of living then move somewhere cheaper/warmer
once you stop making money? The reverse probably doesn't happen?)

2) Is this just mapping relative state incomes? I think people moving between
states randomly would produce this pattern given income differences.

I'm also not sure what the point is from a policy perspective. Even if the
pattern is true doesn't necessarily mean that states should change their
policies.

~~~
tzs
> is this just showing retirement patterns?

That's certainly a part of it, but there seems to be quite a bit more going
on.

For example, look at King County, Washington (Seattle's county). It has the
biggest gain from Los Angeles County, CA. No way is that from people in Los
Angeles deciding that Seattle is where they want to retire.

The next biggest gain for King Country is from Leon County, FL (the country of
Tallahassee). That too seems unlikely to have a significant retirement
component.

That's closely followed by Cook County, IL, which may actually be dismal
enough climate-wise that someone might retire from there to Seattle.

Rounding out the top 5 for King County are Santa Clara and San Mateo in CA,
both which seem unlikely to be due to retirement.

The biggest losses from King County are the four nearest counties that are on
Puget Sound (Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, and Island), and the southernmost
Washington county, Clark, which is on the Oregon border across from Portland.
These probably aren't retirements.

I wonder how much of the Clark thing is people who have realized that if they
live there they can easily shop in Portland (no sales tax) while living in
Washington (no income tax)?

Looking across Puget Sound to Kitsap, we do some some signs of retirement. Of
the top 5 Kitsap had losses to, there are three adjacent counties, one that is
one away, and Maricopa County, AZ. That last one is probably retirement.

~~~
cozzyd
Yeah, this is a strange pattern at the metro level. Same seems to hold true
for my county (Cook County). I wonder if somehow the web site is counting
income generated by commuters from collar counties as income lost by the main
city.

EDIT:

No, I'm wrong. The statistics are starting in 1992, so mostly it's just
showing the growth of suburbs. It's more obvious if you click on population
mode.

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yuliyp
I'm unsure of what this is measuring. Is it wealth? Is it income?

Also, it's unclear it measures what it seeks to measure. Imagine a (poor)
rural area and a (rich) urban area. Let's assume there's 0 net migration, but
100 people move in each direction every year. This looks like a migration of
wealth given the methodology shown, but it's actually noise.

Thus the point the author seems to be driving "look how bad California is at
having pro-wealth policies" may be flawed. Any wealthy area is going to look
redder than any poor area (unless there's also a net migration of people too).

Reading the rest of the site it's clear he's just trying to push an agenda,
though. He's not asking critical questions, just using words like
"unimpeachable".

~~~
petre
It measures capital flowing from the high tax (CA, NY) to the low tax states
(TX, FL, WA).

~~~
asveikau
I clicked on California and it gave me a per-county view, and it seems like a
bunch of counties (which pay the same California taxes) are green.

I clicked San Francisco county and it seems like it's gaining money from other
high tax areas (Santa Clara, New York, Chicago, DC, and Boston, in that order)
and it's losing money to other, more suburban Bay Area counties. I don't see
any low tax state mentioned in that view.

As I click through on other states I'm familiar with or have lived in, the
trend I'm seeing is that populated areas are all red. That makes me think
about the comment here about retirements or regional income differences. There
is some population-based skewing here.

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BoiledCabbage
I can't stand sites like these. A clear agenda, but rather than come out Nd
say it, wrap it up in a collection of misleading graphs and stats.

The clear agenda is to push for cutting taxes no matter what. But it takes a
relatively intelligent person a few mins to investigate the site to show that
it's roughly nothing more than listing high income state in red and low income
in green.

If CA is twice as wealthy as AL, and two families swap states, then you'll
have net money flowing out.

And it's not accidental the coloring of red and green to implicitly associate
one with good and bad. It of course flipped to support his agenda.

He should instead reverse the colors and ask the question, "Which state is
growing / producing the most wealthy people? And sharing that wealth
throughout the country?"

It's of course, CA/NY/DC/MA/... All those places he wants to try to paint
poorly.

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abusoufiyan
I mean, all this is a fancy way of saying "I made a map where high income tax
counties and states are red and low income tax states and counties are green."

~~~
tzs
Try clicking on states and looking at the information that is then shown on
the left. Try the same for counties within a state. That's where you get the
interesting information.

~~~
abusoufiyan
I did, it just shows a ticker of AGI lost / gained per second.

But that's still just a calculation of how much income tax a particular state
/ county has...

~~~
tzs
Look below the ticker, where it shows a table of the top 5 states or counties
(depending on if you are looking at a state or a county) the current state or
county gained from, and the amounts from each, and below that a similar table
for losses.

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hinkley
Another informatic with no legend. :|

