Escape From New York, 2025 Millionaire Edition
18th September 2025
For decades, New York City prided itself on being the financial capital of the world. It’s a place where money, culture, and power converge. And yet, as has been seen in San Francisco, Chicago, and other locations around the United States, New York is experiencing a steady exodus of millionaires and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. While some observers dismiss this as anecdotal or exaggerated, the facts paint a different picture: one with serious implications for the city’s fiscal health, social fabric, and attractiveness.
It is easy to forget that New York’s gleaming infrastructure, vast public services, and social programs are underwritten disproportionately by a tiny number of residents. Fewer than one percent of taxpayers account for more than 40 percent of all income tax revenue collected in the state, and a similar share in the city. Without those individuals, the ability of millions of ordinary New Yorkers to enjoy subsidized transit, robust public safety services, and cultural investments would collapse. In other words, and despite endless egalitarian rhetoric, the lifestyle of the masses is silently carried on the shoulders of the few.
The scale of the loss is becoming visible. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of New Yorkers earning between $150,000 and $750,000 fell by nearly six percent, while the number of true high earners—those making over $750,000—dropped by nearly 10 percent, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. This erosion matters because the city’s top one percent—about 41,000 filers—pay more than 40 percent of all income taxes. The top 10 percent pay about two-thirds. Which means the remaining 90 percent of taxpayers contribute only about one-third of the city’s income tax revenue. When even a small share of these high earners disappears, the impact is seismic.
Recent migration trends confirm the damage. More than 125,000 New Yorkers have fled to Florida in just the past few years, carrying nearly $14 billion worth of income with them, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. About a third of those movers—more than 41,000 people—went to Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward Counties between 2018 and 2022. Those escapes alone stripped New York City of an estimated $10 billion in adjusted gross income. When money and mobility align, no amount of political rhetoric can stop people from voting with their feet.