Residents escaping New York state at an alarming rate are fleeing to Florida more than any other state.
More than one in five New Yorkers who left — 21.3% — relocated to the Sunshine State, an Empire Center analysis of IRS tax data from 2010 to 2018 found.
The average annual income of New York transplants was $90,310.
But New Yorkers are not just flocking to warmer climate states — they’re also crossing the Hudson and settling in New Jersey.
About 16% of New Yorkers who left had moved to the Garden State. The border crossers had an average income of $96,953.
While suburbanites chose Florida as their top destination, far more New York City residents who moved out-of-state laid down roots in Jersey, the survey found.
More residents in four of the five boroughs flocked over the Hudson, while more Bronx residents chose Florida.
Jersey — hardly a low-cost state — is a bargain compared to New York.
“New Jersey is the most affordable suburb. For all of New Jersey’s problems, it’s still less expensive to live there than in New York City or the NYC suburbs,” said the Empire Center’s EJ McMahon, author of the report.
Many of the people who move to Jersey commute to work in the city, he said.
Other top destinations for New York state transplants include North Carolina (8%), Pennsylvania (7%), California and Texas (6%), Connecticut (5.6%) and Georgia (4.5&), South Carolina (3.5%) and Virginia (3.1%).
The study comes a day after an Empire Center revealed that New York state’s population declined by 76,790 residents over the past year and been hemorrhaging residents since 2016.
New York is also a net exporter of residents to other states, with 180,649 more people moving out than from moving in from other states since 2018.
The Empire State has lost a net 1.4 million residents to the rest of the country since 2010.
New York’s population has been stagnant over the past decade, with a modest increase of 75,469 residents since 2010 — ranking 46 out of 50 states for growth.