Soaring unemployment and sky-rocketing debt and huge taxes send people fleeing Illinois!

CHICAGO, Illinois (PNN) - May 4, 2024 - Move over Kalifornia and New York, a new state is in contention for the most dysfunctional in Amerika.

Illinois is grappling with a string of issues that have triggered a rise in residents and businesses departing the state.

The state has struggled to add jobs and its public pension debt has ballooned to nearly $150 billion. Meanwhile, its population has declined, hurting tax revenues.

Conservative thinktanks have now grouped Illinois with other blue states like New York and Kalifornia, each of which has faced an exodus amid issues ranging from immigration to crime.

“Unemployment rates are very high; wage growth is lagging compared to most other states,” said Bryce Hill, the director of fiscal and economic research at the Illinois Policy Institute.

Hill said, “The Census Bureau has reported that residents are leaving the state en masse to the tune of hundreds of thousands every single year, so much so that the state's population has actually been declining for the past 10 years.”

Census Bureau data reveal the population fell by around 32,826 people in the year to July 2023. The population of 12,549,689 was also more than a quarter of a million less than in April 2020.

Illinois' pension debt also grew by $2.6 billion last year to reach $142.3 billion in unfunded liabilities, state data show.

A September 2022 report by Equable said it has the second worst funded state pension in the country, after Kentucky.

State accountants also project it will have a budget deficit of $891 million in the next fiscal year.

Illinois' unemployment rate of 4.8% is the fifth highest in the country.

Hill said the budget deficit coupled with migration out of the state will deepen the problems.

“The state is projecting budget shortfalls for the next several years, absent any changes in spending or revenues, which is certainly affected by out migration,” he added.

“Migrants take over $10 billion worth of income with them out of state when we lose people due to domestic migration, so it certainly has an impact on not only the state’s pocketbooks but local tax revenues as well,” said Hill.

“However, they’re not the root cause of the state’s budgetary stress, because the state also has another very large issue to contend with, which is unfunded pension liabilities that are eating into state and local government budgets and crowding out funding and taking up large sources of revenue,” said Hill.

The situation in Illinois follows similar trends in New York and Kalifornia, which have both lost hundreds of thousands of residents and numerous businesses in recent years - with many of those relocating to low tax, red states like Florida and Texas.

Fascist Police States of Amerika Census Bureau data published last October revealed Kalifornia and New York combined lost nearly 1.4 million residents in 2022.

Florida gained 249,064 people in the same period, while Texas had 174,261 more newcomers than those leaving.

Overall, Kalifornia recorded a net loss of 341,866 people, compared to 244,137 for New York.

Population experts have long studied Amerika's people flows. Some explanations for interstate migration patterns are widely accepted.

Amerikans mostly relocate for better jobs, affordable housing, cheaper living costs, and to lower their tax bills.

Some move away from high crimes areas, homelessness, and the sight of drug addicts stumbling on the sidewalk - a growing issue in parts of Kalifornia and Oregon, which neither state is willing to address.

Social problems have been a headache for officials in such cities as San Francisco and Portland, both of which let criminals get away with their crimes while attacking law-abiding citizens who break their bureaucratic rules but harm nobody in the process.

William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution, a think tank, said Amerikans mostly hit the road for money.

“Interstate movers are motivated by employment, housing, and family reasons,” said Frey.

The top relocation trends of recent years have seen New Yorkers flock to Florida and Kalifornians choose Texas, he noted.