After decades of dramatic population increases, California’s residency totals have stabilized, although not in the manner that advocates had hoped for. Radical policies embraced in Sacramento, and by other major municipalities including Los Angeles and San Francisco, have accelerated residents’ departure. Those still stuck behind are left to cope with rising crime, homelessness and governance’s indifference to taxpayers’ legitimate grievances.
Under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s woke, misguided leadership, district attorneys disinclined to prosecute have passively looked on as California’s violent crime rate increased by 6 percent, from 2020 to 2021. During the same period, aggravated assaults jumped by 8.9 percent, and homicides and rape increased by 7.7 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.
Criminals are so fearless and authorities so inert that the media has coined a new phrase to describe hoodlums’ brazen behavior. “Smash-and-grab” refers to mobs of hooded thieves that break into upscale department stores, smash display cases and grab expensive merchandise for resale on street corners or on the Internet. Homelessness, a problem that Newsom, tongue-in-cheek, said he “owns,” is a major headache for California’s big city dwellers.
California was once a prime destination for individuals who wanted to bask in the Golden State’s many advantages – weather, good middle-class jobs and a thriving economy. Today, job-seekers are headed elsewhere. From 1900 through 1990, California’s population increased 38 percent on average per decade. In 1900, California’s population was 1.5 million; in 1990, the total population was 30 million, and just a tick below 40 million in 2023. California’s Department of Finance, the state’s official demographer, noted that in its most recent count, 46 of the state’s 58 counties, including the three most populous – Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange – lost population.
Californians’ exodus to other states marks the beginning of residents’ flight away from what they increasingly view as a dysfunctional place to live. The American Community Survey found that, from 2010 through 2021, about 7.7 million people moved from California to other states, while only 5.8 million people moved to California from other parts of the country. The California Department of Finance estimates that the state has lost residents to other states every year since 2000. Over the past few years, the movement out of the state has accelerated with a record net outflow of 407,000 from July 2021 to July 2022.
In 2021, more than 360,000 people left California to relocate in Texas, Arizona and Washington. Some even moved to Mexico to avoid the 2021 to 2022 inflation surge, as Mexico is more affordable to live in than many U.S. destinations. Between April 2020 and July 2022, the state’s population dropped by more than 500,000 people, a trend demographers refer to as net interstate migration. Among the departing Californians are young adults who have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, a significant trend because historically the Golden State was a destination for aspiring college-educated persons at the outset of their careers. Also abandoning California in large numbers are high-income households, defined as earning incomes of $137,500 or more for a family of four.
If interstate migration patterns continue, California could experience sustained population losses for years to come. Eventually, assuming the migration pattern continues, California will be transformed from vibrant and productive to government benefit-dependent.
Because of the state’s high taxes and complex regulatory environment, businesses also left the state. Between 2020 and 2023, about 65 corporations with 100 or more employees left California. Many companies are household names like McAfee, Oracle, Chevron, Charles Schwab and Tesla.
Incoming population – of which the aggregate total offsets the outgoing population – is in large part illegal immigrants, a variable that the open Southwest border has exacerbated. Newsom, in an interview with ABC News, said that in the post-Title 42 era, the Biden administration is sending “more and more” migrants to California which could, in his word, “break” the state.
California is already broke; its $31.5 million budget deficit bodes poorly for residents who depend on the state for child care, transportation and other publicly funded services, areas targeted for deep cuts. The state budget is highly dependent on income taxes paid by its highest earners – people who have fled – and is therefore subject to the ebbs and flows of capital gains from investments and the hefty bonuses paid to executives.
Incredibly, against the backdrop of Californians voting with their feet, and exiting in droves, Newsom’s name is bandied about as a possible 2024 presidential candidate should Biden either be forced to retire or be dumped. Other scenarios are possible. Boot Vice President Kamala Harris off the 2024 ticket, replace her with Newsom, and in a smoke-filled backroom prearranged deal, Biden retires shortly after Inauguration Day. In February 2025, Gavin Newsom, having never campaigned or received a single vote, would become the U.S. president.
On the surface, such a bizarre set-up appears farfetched. But in today’s political climate, anything goes – absolutely anything – including elevating to the White House a governor who has spawned California’s deep and potentially irreversible decline.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst.