Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 11
Written a month after Mamdani’s win.
No, New York City’s wealthiest are not fleeing the city after Mamdani’s win
Conservatives warned of a mass exodus if the democratic socialist won, but experts, and property data, paint a very different picture.
The warnings were stark. If Zohran Mamdani were to win the New York City mayoral election, his plans to raise taxes – slightly – on the city’s wealthiest residents would cause millionaires to bolt en masse, decamping to lower-tax states such as Florida and Texas.
The New York Post, a conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, told readers on an almost daily basis through October that New York would effectively become a ghost town under Mamdani’s mayoralty, a propaganda campaign that concluded the day before the election with the bombastic claim that “nearly a million” people were planning to “flee”.
But a month after Mamdani’s historic win, there is no evidence that rich people are leaving the Big Apple. In fact, they seem to be committing to staying in New York.
Signed contracts on Manhattan homes costing more than $4m increased in November compared with October, Fortune magazine reported, with the most expensive homes outperforming the overall market. And inventory in the “luxury market” fell by 16% in October compared with the previous year, suggesting that, actually, more people are committing to staying in New York.
So despite the fearmongering about rich people leaving, and taking the money they contribute to the city in taxes with them, it isn’t happening yet. Experts say it is unlikely to start.
“If we just look at migration rates of high-income people, the rates are very low. Rich people are not the folks who are, you know, pulling up camp and moving to a different part of the country. That’s just not who’s doing that,” said Cristobal Young, an associate professor in the department of sociology at Cornell University and author of The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight.
This is partly because rich people are more likely to have the kind of attachments that make it difficult to uproot. The wealthiest Americans are significantly more likely to be married than middle-income earners, which data shows makes them less likely to move city, Young said.
“It’s one of these things that’s part of the spoils of economic success in life,” he said. “What we see is that high-income earners have a lot of things that we can easily think of as sort of normal attachments to place. When they’re married, their migration rates are a lot lower when they have kids, their migration rates are a lot lower.”
Young and others have analyzed the introduction of taxes similar to those proposed by Mamdani in New Jersey, California, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and found little evidence that those policies led to a mass exodus.
“It’s totally possible that a handful of people will move away. There’s going to be some people who were close to the margins [of leaving] saying: ‘You know what, New York isn’t working for me anyway, this isn’t the right city for me.’ And if the tax rate goes up by a couple of points, you know that’ll be for them the last straw. But what you need to think about is the fact that 98% of high-income earners are going to stay in the city, and they’ll be paying that new tax rate, and they’ll be contributing more revenues.”
Quentin Parrinello, policy director at the the EU Tax Observatory, said studies in Scandinavia and France also shows that “mobility of high-net-worth individuals does exist, but it is extremely limited”.
So why do people tend to stay in the end?
“Because they have cultural, family or economic ties to the area. Sometimes it’s assets you cannot physically move, sometimes it’s a network of contacts that create business opportunities, sometimes it’s the attraction for the cultural offer in the area. This is particularly the case for a big metropolis like NYC,” Parrinello said.
“And the complexities of moving away from these opportunities ultimately appear bigger than what you will pay in tax – particularly when the proposed tax rise is somewhat modest at the aggregate level of taxes paid.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/ne...
No. of Recommendations: 3
But a month after Mamdani’s historic win, there is no evidence that rich people are leaving the Big Apple. In fact, they seem to be committing to staying in New York.
A month??? Give me a break. A months time tells you nothing.
Besides the Guardian is left leaning, so you will get no factual information from the Guardian.
“Your Major independent watchdog groups classify the outlet as follows:AllSides: Explicitly moved The Guardian's rating from Lean Left to Left. Their editorial reviews cite strong left-leaning word choices, selective story selection, and progressive slant.”
No. of Recommendations: 5
No. of Recommendations: 5
Face it: the long anticipated exodus of the rich from NYC has failed to materialize.
Apparently, a 2% tax isn’t enough to make them pick up and move.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Most of us equate the amount of money we have with our quality of life. This is absolutely not true for the super wealthy. If they leave because they will have less money, it is a political statement and not a quality of life statement. They will pick a place to live based on friends, family, routines, weather, and things to do. If/when they move they may make a political statement, but the move is most likely caused by one of the other factors.
Alan
No. of Recommendations: 8
Besides the Guardian is left leaning, so you will get no factual information from the Guardian.
“Your Major independent watchdog groups classify the outlet as follows:AllSides:
This is kinda on the dumb side, LM, as Allside looks at the bias but doesn't evaluate the Guardian regarding facts unless it departs for the moon in conspiracy theories, etc., so your contention you will get no factual information from the Guardian is entirely unsupported - as usual.
But Media Bias Fact Check does look critically at the facts:
Net Sifter
Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) rates The Guardian as having a "Left" or "Left-Center" bias and a "High" rating for factual reporting. MBFC bases its "High" factual rating on the publication's strong investigative reporting, proper sourcing of information, and a clean track record with fact-checkers.
MBFC
~Overall, we rate The Guardian as Left-Center biased based on its story selection, which moderately favors the left. We also now rate them High for factual reporting due to minimal failed fact checks in the last five years.
So your contention regarding no factual information from the Guardian is a convenient fabrication on your part.
No. of Recommendations: 3
So your contention regarding no factual information from the Guardian is a convenient fabrication on your part
And LM has shown us that she gets her 'information' from the worst of the worst RW propaganda sites. She's not what you would call self-aware, but MAGA generally aren't.
No. of Recommendations: 2
So your contention regarding no factual information from the Guardian is a convenient fabrication on your part.
That’s what makes it Truth.
If it feels right, it’s true.
New York is a hellhole and wealthy people are pushing their earthly belongings out of town on handcarts, while being whipped by Mamdani and his mob of commiefascistDumbocrats.
No. of Recommendations: 11
So your contention regarding no factual information from the Guardian is a convenient fabrication on your part.
Clearly, facts are biased to the left. Due to that obvious bias, facts must be ignored.
/sarcasm
Steve
