By the time you finish reading this, another Illinoisan will have moved to another state.
Last year, 141,656 people quit Illinois. That’s one every 3 minutes, 43 seconds. That’s nearly like Naperville or Joliet vanishing in a year.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated a total loss of 104,437 people between July 2021 and July 2022, somewhat blunted by births and moves from foreign countries. Yet the loss was still a new state record.
You would think a historic and accelerating population loss equivalent to losing as many people as live in one of the state’s largest cities would be big news. You’d be wrong. There were relatively few mentions.
But most disturbing was the response from the guy in whom Illinoisans again placed their trust for the next four years.
“While we will study these preliminary numbers, the context regarding their accuracy is important,” read a statement from Gov. J.B. Pritzker. “Illinois remains one of the most populous states in the nation and long-term trends remain encouraging.”
Long-term trends? The long-term trend is nine consecutive years of population loss. That’s the opposite of encouraging.
Denial and obfuscation are familiar Pritzker tactics. Either he lives in a Gold Coast La-La Land, or he’s unwilling to address the alarm bells because that would mean he has to do some leading toward solutions and spend some of the political capital he’s apparently preserving for a presidential bid.
Don’t expect a new chapter of “Profiles in Courage” about Illinois’ governor, even though no problem could be quite as big and cry out for a solution as much as the exodus of Illinoisans deciding they can do better somewhere else. It takes courage and leadership to sway your special interests into at least staying silent about doing what’s right.
Poor public policy is driving people out of Illinois. Fixing those policies is easy, but surviving those changes politically is darned near impossible in this state.
Better housing and better job opportunities typically are why people leave Illinois, and public policy heavily impacts both. Public policy always has a price tag, and poor public policy tends toward bigger price tags. Nearly half of Illinoisans said they have thought about moving away, reporting taxes as their No. 1 reason.
And when we lose neighbors, we lose the ones least likely to need services and most likely to be lucrative sources of government revenue.
Internal Revenue Service data for 2020 tax returns showed Illinois lost 100,921 residents and nearly $8.5 billion in adjusted gross income on net to other states. Those leaving Illinois had $30,606 in income per tax return more than those coming here.
So even if Pritzker and the supermajorities of Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly fear the public unions and their other campaign backers, you’d think keeping the skilled, well-paid workforce at home in Illinois with their $8.5 billion in taxable income would motivate them. You can’t spend what you can’t tax.
But let’s pretend Pritzker is a population expert and Illinois isn’t really losing people … no, seriously. Illinois is losing corporate headquarters as companies seek growing markets, greater safety, and better regulatory and tax environments: Boeing, Citadel, Tyson, Caterpillar and Highland Ventures are all heading for the state line.
Caterpillar CEO Jim Umpleby warned state leaders a decade ago that taxes and regulatory costs threatened his company’s future in Illinois. He was ignored and the company now resides in Texas.
Illinois’ ninth year of accelerating population loss sets an all-time record and it appears Illinois leaders again are ignoring it. More importantly, they are ignoring the message: high taxes, driven up at the state and local levels by unchecked growth in public pensions, is throttling the state.
Money talks, but woe to those who fail to listen to what it says as it’s walking out the door. Pritzker and his friends in Springfield need to hear the message.
