We’ve covered where the young and old want to move, but what about the wealthy?
Migration habits are an interest area of study for many professionals, as they play an important role in determining the economic future of any given area. With that in mind, where are the wealthiest among us migrating to?
While some things about how the rich like to live their lives are quite interesting, it won’t come as a surprise that the rich aren’t joining middle class retirement-aged Americans in Arizona for the extra comfort and low cost of living. According to a recent study by LendingTree, the rich are moving into the states that poor people are running away from, such as Hawaii. That’s no surprise, but one can’t overlook the fact that when the rich move, they take most of their money with them. This has created a funnel which has seen the wealth of high-net-worth individuals move from poorer states to lucky new states like Florida and Hawaii. Of course, the effect on the states that get left behind in the modern ultra-mobile era is quite negative, even going so far as to widen the regional wealth gap in the US.
Wealthy retirees, workers, and other wealthy individuals have driven sizable income growth in several states. For example, Florida saw an increase in average income in 2016, but 85% of this growth came from wealthy migrants to the state, according to the same LendingTree study. Taking the cutoff point at $100,000 per year, Hawaii has seen similar trends take place. In 2016, many individuals with an income under $100,000 left the state, while enough individuals making more than $200,000 per year moved in to push the average gross income of the state up. The states that have benefited the most from the flow of income from people moving in and out were Florida, South Carolina, and Idaho, which saw their average income go up significantly with the help of rich migrants.
On the other end of the spectrum, where are all these wealthy people running from? If you want to get rid of the wealthy in any state, the keys are high taxes, high costs of living, and cold winters. While the wealthy don’t move to the poorest states in the union, they aren’t moving to the richest ones either. The main states that the rich are fleeing are Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and New York.
