Massachusetts is only number seven?
Seventh among the 50 states people are fleeing? That’s the best – or worst – that we can do?
Over the past couple of years, the Commonwealth has usually ranked a lot higher than seventh when it comes to any kind of catastrophic statistics.
Number three in deaths per 100,000 during most of the Dem panic, I mean the pandemic.
Number one in unemployment in the nation for several months during 2020.
So this annual United Van Lines National Movers Study comes as a bit of a disappointment. Gov. Charlie Baker – Charlie Parker, as Dementia Joe Biden calls him – has certainly done his damnedest to make this state as unlivable as possible.
Parker has turned Massachusetts so unlivable that he became unelectable, which is why he’s now a lame duck. Still, under his dismal stewardship, Massachusetts should be the second or third most unlivable state in the union, as it is in so many other quality-of-life stats, like taxes for instance.
Granted, when it comes to out-migration the state is in a tough conference, as they sometimes say about the NFL. It’s the “high outbound” conference, as United Van Lines describes Massachusetts and its peer states.
Topping the flight list, as it has for the past four years, is New Jersey, whose governor is, like Charlie Parker, a graduate of Needham High School Class of ’75. So this’ll be a big brag for Phil Murphy at the next Rocket reunion.
The Garden State is not exactly the Garden of Eden.
Number two is Illinois, whose governor, trust-fund billionaire J. B. Pritzker, has a little getaway spot in Wellington, Fla., as well as a private jet to get there. Incidentally, the prior governor of Illinois took it on the lam and is now a legal resident of Florida.
Third in departures is New York, the state with no bail and even fewer prospects, followed by Connecticut, California and Michigan, bust outs one and all, in almost every way.
Massachusetts is the first state on the on-the-lam list with a Republican governor, even if he is a RINO. Conversely, among the states with the highest rate of inbound moving traffic, the top seven have … GOP chief executives.
Go figure.
Most of those checking out of the Bay State are between 35 and 65 years old, with incomes of between $50,000 and $150,000 — the middle classes, in other words.
The biggest reason given to United Van Lines for leaving Massachusetts is “jobs” (31 percent), followed by family at 25 percent and retirement 22 percent.
Most of Massachusetts’ net in-migration likewise involves jobs. The people moving here heard there weren’t any — jobs, that is — and that they wouldn’t be expected to actually work here.
The working classes are being supplanted by the non-working classes.
As fast as people are moving out of Massachusetts (and the other blue stateas), I suspect a lot more would be decamping if it wasn’t for different “family” reasons — people in their prime working years here don’t want to abandon their elderly parents in this hellhole, and sometimes can’t convince them to vote with their feet quite yet.
The old people are left behind while their children flee the police states. Massachusetts is a lot like Cuba and Venezuela in this regard.
In 2020, by the way, Massachusetts was number eight in departures, so we’re moving up. And I suspect 2022 will be even better — or is it worse? — once taxpayers figure out that this proposed “millionaires’ tax” on the ballot will quickly affect everyone in Massachusetts who has a real job.
If you’ve always dreamed of being a millionaire, just vote for this millionaires’ tax, because if it passes, before you know it you’ll be a millionaire too — at least for the purposes of paying the state income tax.
Many New Englanders will be taking it on the lam this weekend, heading to sunny South Florida for the Pats’ final regular-season game against the Miami Dolphins. As with AOC, their money is always welcome in the Sunshine State, but snowbirds should be advised to leave their crackpot Blue State politics behind.
The lead story in Monday’s Palm Beach Daily News was about a rash of fliers dropped on cars with New York license plates over the weekend, in all capital letters:
IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE ‘WOKE’ PEOPLE – LEAVE FLORIDA. YOU WILL BE HAPPIER ELSEWHERE AS WILL WE.
But if you’re not woke, you’re welcome. Just call United Van Lines and get on the outbound waiting list.