I reset the comments which were unfortunately not up to par for this site. Please be considerate. This is not Reddit or Twitter. We are a trivia site, not a political debate site.
A lot of northern states have an aging population. They move south because it gets cold in the north. The way tax rates are set up is also more favorable in the south for the most part.
I feel like I should carry on Kal's legacy and say something about the comment deletion, but on some level I can't blame QM for not wanting to be a forum moderator.
I miss that guy, though. Or, really, I miss the version of him who was around a decade ago. When he was still controversial, but nicer, and less bitterly cynical. I think Cristina really did a number on him....
In the recent past he left this website because he was angry about comment moderation policies. In the longer ago past of 2016, he dated a Romanian girl named Cristina who messed him up mentally, and sent him down a path of becoming meaner and more egregious in these comments sections, which eventually resulted in the former.
Would be interesting to see if these rankings differ significantly when looking at percentage of the population leaving. There are like half a dozen states whose entire population is less than the number of people who left California and all of these states are still growing except Illinois.
I think West Virginia has consistently been the worst when it comes to percentage? Although post-pandemic migration patterns mean large expensive states will still be highly represented
With our national birthrate dropping below the replacement rate, this will eventually be true for any place that immigrants don't prefer. Because immigration is what is keeping our total population from shrinking.
By and large, that's honestly one of the better dialogues I've seen regarding socio-political issues in the contemporary US, but the bar is admittedly quite low. Nevertheless, some of it goes over the line and is unbecoming of what this site is about.
I miss that guy, though. Or, really, I miss the version of him who was around a decade ago. When he was still controversial, but nicer, and less bitterly cynical. I think Cristina really did a number on him....