One Secret to Zohran Mamdani’s Political Success

The data provide more evidence that pandemic lockdowns fueled an exodus from the state, with 112,458 tax filers on net vamoosing in 2020. That’s one in every 100 resident taxpayers. Another 95,679 on net moved out between 2021 and 2024. These figures include only tax filers, not the broader population, some of whom don’t pay state income tax.

While out-migration has slowed in the last couple of years, high earners and married people continue to leave in large numbers. The data show that 13,662 taxpayers—roughly 1 in 1,000 resident taxpayers—on net left the state in 2024.

“The greatest net loss of taxpayers was among married filers with incomes between $100,000 and $500,000—a net loss of 8,200, or more than half of the total net out-migration, in 2024,” the comptroller’s office says. The highest out-migration rate was for households making $500,000 or more—about one in 100 of whom moved out that year.

The data underscore how the state’s high taxes and cost of living drive out top earners as well as middle and upper middle class families. Other flight propellants include New York City’s poor public schools and disorderly streets. Enrollment in New York City public schools has fallen 117,800 since 2019.

But here’s the political irony, which the comptroller’s office calls “one positive post-pandemic trend”: An influx to the state of single tax filers. These include the young urban progressives who form New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s base and propelled his socialist comrades to victory in Democratic primaries last month.

Progressive policies in New York City and other big cities are driving out the moderate and conservative voters who have historically been an electoral check on bad governance. The New York voters who made George Pataki Governor in 1994 and Rudy Giuliani mayor in 1993 now live elsewhere.

These are the taxpayers who pay the bills for the welfare state and public unions. Good luck funding universal child care and socialist housing with the taxes from graduate students and community organizers.