There is a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank based in New York called the Citizens Budget Commission (or CBC). And this week they launched Competitive NYC. The intent is a kind of dashboard that provides insights into NYC's overall competitiveness — specifically its ability to attract and retain both residents and businesses. I won't summarize all of the findings; if you'd like to take a look, you can do that here. But I did want to point out one finding.

Here's a chart showing the top 10 states for people with incomes greater than $1 million:

The number of "millionaires" in New York state increased from 35,802 in 2010 to 69,780 in 2022, but its share of US millionaires declined the most. Previously it was 12.7%, and in 2022 it had dropped to 8.7%. On the other end of the spectrum, the state with the biggest share gain was Florida.

The tracker goes on to suggest that high taxes may be a factor for households moving out of New York City. Here's a chart showing taxes per $1,000 of personal income:

New York state is the highest and is 56% above the US average, whereas Florida is 31% below the average. Florida also has the sunshine thing going for it. This migration trend aligns with what was talked about a lot during the pandemic. Between April 2020 and July 2022, NYC lost nearly half a million residents, a chunk of which went to Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties.

It's a reminder not to take competitiveness for granted, especially when there's a clear trend toward places with warmer weather. People can and will vote with their feet.

Cover photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash; charts from CBCNY

Henley & Partners is a firm that specializes in residence and citizenship by investment. What this means is that if you have a lot of money and you'd like to take take up residency somewhere else, or if you'd like to start a company somewhere else, they can probably help you with that. And, if you're a country, they can also help you design a program to attract the above rich people.

As a result of being in this line of work, the company has a pretty good understanding of where rich people are going. This year, for example, they are forecasting that approximately 128,000 millionaires from around the world will end up moving somewhere else. This doesn't mean that they'll simply get residency in another country; it means they'll start spending greater than 6 months each year there.

It's interesting to look at these provisional flows.

Here are the countries where millionaires are currently leaving:

And here are the countries where they're going:

The United Arab Emirates isn't very big. It has somewhere around 11 million people (2024 estimate). This makes the US about 30x bigger in terms of its population. And yet, they seem to have designed a pretty good mouse trap for catching millionaires. Having no income taxes helps. But the same could be said for a number of the countries on this list: relatively small and jockeying for high-net-worth individuals.

Cover photo by Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash