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Andrea Austria / Media Matters

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Right-wing media go to bat for New York's richest by pushing a debunked myth that higher taxes will cause millionaires to flee

Written by Zachary Pleat

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The myth that wealthier residents will flee higher-tax cities and states en masse for lower-tax locations has been debunked time and time again by researchers, but right-wing media outlets have repeatedly claimed that higher taxes on the rich that are being implemented by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will cause an exodus of millionaires.

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  • New York is pursuing an income tax on millionaires and a tax on second homes for wealthy owners who don’t primarily live in NYC

    • The New York Times: “The mayor’s plan is simple: increase the city income tax rate by two percentage points for those who earn $1 million per year or more, from 3.88 percent to 5.88 percent — the equivalent of a 51 percent increase.” The New York Times explained: “A household that earns $1 million per year would pay $20,000 more in city taxes, while one earning $10 million per year would pay $200,000 more. The plan would affect about 34,000 households, a group that is small but important to the city budget.” The Times added: “Doing so could raise an additional $3 billion in revenue annually.” [The New York Times, 5/2/26]
    • The New York Times: “Mr. Mamdani says his income tax proposal could raise $3 billion per year. He wants to spend it primarily on free child care.” The Times continued: “The city is currently using $1.2 billion in state funding to pay for an expansion of free child care to some 2-year-olds. The city already offers free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, and Mr. Mamdani wants to eventually provide free child care to every child under 5. Mr. Mamdani will need billions more to keep adding child care seats, as well as to pay for other priorities like free buses and affordable housing.” [The New York Times, 5/2/26]
    • The Wall Street Journal: New York pied-à-terre tax on second homes of rich people who don’t primarily live there “would apply to an estimated 10,000 homes” and is estimated to raise $500 million annually. The Wall Street Journal further explained: “For the first two years, a tax of between 4% to 6.5% would apply to apartments with a so-called market value of $1 million or more. For co-ops and condos, that market value is calculated by the city’s Department of Finance, based on comparable rental properties and other factors. The market value tends to be much lower than what a home actually sells for.” The Journal added: “After two years, second homes would be taxed at a considerably lower rate and wouldn’t be assessed by market value. Instead, the governor’s office said city officials would need to devise a new system to value these second homes in phase two.” [The Wall Street Journal, 5/14/26]
    • Hochul’s office explained that the tax is “an annual surcharge on residential properties in New York City that are not occupied as a primary residence. The tax would ensure that those that own luxury homes, but do not live in the City or pay City income tax are still fairly contributing towards” NYC’s revenue. The explanation continued: “The tax would only apply to those homes that are not the primary residence of the owner or are not rented to a primary resident or occupied by the owner’s family.” [New York State, 4/15/26]

  • Right-wing media have repeatedly pushed the tax flight myth in response to these proposals

    • Fox News anchor Dana Perino: Flight from NYC’s tax increases on the rich could result in the city losing Electoral College votes. Guest Tiffany Smiley added: “Mamdani shouldn't look any further than Seattle as an example that these policies simply do not work. We see these socialist policies in Seattle have led to Starbucks, who started in Seattle, is leaving. They’re going to Nashville.” (In fact, Starbucks’ announcement on an expansion in Nashville stated that “the majority of our support teams continue to be based here in Seattle.”) She continued: “They’re taking jobs with them. They’re taking entrepreneurs with them. They’re taking millionaires. There’s a mass exodus, and that's sort of what Mamdani needs to look at because it’s going to happen here. And eventually, when you are not pro-business and you can't compete, your pot is going to dry up as people leave. And what happens to your budget then? And then what happens to the city? It’s a trickle-down effect that affects the people.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/26/26; Starbucks, 4/21/26]
    • Fox contributor and Wall Street Journal editor Gerry Baker: “New York City taxes are already incredibly high. … If you put those taxes up even more, people are going to move out.” Baker continued: “They're doing it already,” claiming that he’s talked to New York business owners who have threatened to move to Florida or Texas. Co-anchor Sandra Smith added: “The very people that he’s demonizing, that will just pick up and leave, are the most mobile.” [Fox News, America Reports, 5/21/26]
    • Fox’s America’s Newsroom on New York’s plans for a tax on second homes of rich non-residents: “A new report showing the blue state tax burden fuels Americans fleeing to Republican-led southern states.” Guest and Fox Business host Charles Payne claimed “the ultra, ultra wealthy” are “not just leaving, they’re taking their businesses with them.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/20/26]
    • A Fox Business report on NYC’s tax on second homes for rich non-residents included the claim that “this is a very mobile group of buyers. These are people that do not have to be in the city.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 5/20/26]
    • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on taxes targeting the rich: “And that’s why people are leaving New York.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 5/20/26]
    • Fox real estate contributor Katrina Campins on New York’s plans to increase taxes on the rich: “We’re seeing now Florida turn into Wall Street South as a result of these policies.” [Fox News, America Reports, 5/19/26]
    • The New York Post warned of a “feared exodus of billionaires fleeing the socialist mayor.” New York Post cited a report from the Partnership for New York City, which describes itself as “a nonprofit organization of more than 300 preeminent corporate, investment, and entrepreneurial firms working to advance the city's standing,” to claim that New York’s planned taxes on the rich could cost the city $12 billion in GDP. [New York Post, 5/8/26; Partnership for New York City, accessed 5/20/26]
    • Wall Street Journal editorial: “The Mayor went after Ken Griffin by name. It could cost NYC billions.” A Wall Street Journal editorial wrote: “To promote the idea of a pied-à-terre tax in New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently chose to personally attack one property holder, while suggesting that owners of second homes in the city don’t contribute to it.” It continued: “That call-out was nasty and unfair, and the Citadel CEO might not take it lying down.” The editorial highlighted an apparent threat by billionaire Ken Griffin to not go forward with a development project in the city if new taxes on the rich are enacted. [The Wall Street Journal, 4/26/26]
    • Wall Street Journal editorial warning about Hochul’s planned tax on second homes of the rich: “If New York drives away more wealth, voters won’t like the result of living in a city that’s downwardly mobile.” [The Wall Street Journal, 4/17/26]

  • Experts have explained that tax flight is a debunked myth

    • Director of state fiscal research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Whitney Jemison: “This claim’s been tested. Large-scale tax flight does not happen. And even when a wealthy few leave, gains for everyone else win out.” In a series of posts on Bluesky, Jemison cited tax data from both the IRS and Massachusetts’ government to show that after the state passed a millionaire’s tax, “higher-income households are not leaving the state. In fact, households with incomes above $200k saw a decrease in outmigration compared to the year before MA Fair Share was enacted.” [Bluesky, 5/25/26, 5/25/26, 5/25/26, 5/25/26]
    • Fiscal Policy Institute: “High Earners Move Out Of New York Less Often Than Working & Middle Class And Do Not Move In Response To Tax Hikes.” Citing its “novel statistical analysis of the two most recent effective tax increases on high-earning New Yorkers (in 2017 and 2021),” the Fiscal Policy Institute revealed in a December 2023 report that “high earners do not significantly change their migration behavior in response to tax increases. The report also finds that when high earners do move out of New York State, they are more likely to move to other relatively high tax states than to move to low tax states.” It concluded: “There is no statistically significant evidence of tax migration out of New York.” [Fiscal Policy Institute, 12/5/23]
    • Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy on the “millionaire tax flight myth”: “Despite the prevalence of this myth, research shows that the claims are not supported by the data.” ITEP continued: “The fact is that millionaires are unlikely to move because of taxes. Instead, like most other people, millionaires primarily choose where to live based on community ties, schools, and jobs, and are not likely to uproot their lives based on a marginal tax difference.” It added: “Indeed, research shows that the number of wealthy individuals and their cumulative wealth grew after the enactment of higher taxes on high earners in Massachusetts and a progressive capital gains tax on high-wealth Washingtonians.” [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 5/18/26]
    • Cornell University sociology professor Cristobal Young: “Top earners are often thought of as ‘mobile millionaires’ who are ever searching for lower-tax places to live. In reality, they’re often reluctant to leave the places where they built their careers and raised their families.” Young added that “millionaires have low migration rates,” and that “when millionaires do move, it rarely appears to be for tax reasons.” He stated: “Overall, only about 15% of millionaires who move end up with a lower tax bill. That shows the rich are willing and able to move for tax reasons. But because only about 2.4% of millionaires move each year – and only a fraction of those moves reduce their taxes – overall tax migration ends up being a small fraction of a small fraction.” [Cornell University, 12/1/25]
    • A 2023 CBPP study explained: “State Taxes Have a Minimal Impact on People’s Interstate Moves.” Citing “Census and IRS data on interstate migration, and a review of academic studies,” the CBPP stated: “The available evidence, however, fails to support claims that much interstate migration is driven by high-income people — or anyone else — moving because of taxes.” [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 8/9/23]

  • Right-wing media have pushed the tax flight myth for years

    • New York Post in May 2012: “New York state tops the nation in one key export — people fleeing high taxes.” [New York Post, 5/30/12]
    • In November 2012, Fox Business host Stuart Varney promoted the tax flight myth, saying that states that have experienced high rates of out-migration “all have very high tax rates on top income earners.” Varney made similar claims the next month, arguing on Fox & Friends: “The moral is, you raise tax rates and down goes tax revenue” due to millionaires leaving. [Media Matters, 11/30/12, 2/28/14]
    • Fox & Friends also promoted the tax flight myth in 2014, claiming that “liberal states have lost about $140 billion.” [Media Matters, 2/28/14]
    • The Wall Street Journal continued its anti-tax editorial stance during the Biden administration. A March 2023 opinion piece by right-wing economists Art Laffer and Stephen Moore argued against proposals for taxing the rich in multiple states by claiming that “low-tax red states are importing capital and wealth from the high-tax blue states.” A February 2024 editorial ridiculed the idea of a wealth tax proponent bringing in a “Cornell sociologist to debunk the ‘myth’ of millionaire tax flight,” referencing a state legislature presentation by Cristobal Young, an expert who has extensively debunked such claims. And in a September 2024 editorial, the Journal pushed the idea of a “high-tax state brain drain” caused by higher taxes on the rich. [The Wall Street Journal, 3/5/23, 2/16/24, 9/8/24; Vermont Public, 3/29/24; Cornell University, accessed 5/27/26]