California’s population drop over the past few years has given new ammunition to a common conservative criticism: The state’s high taxes and cost of living are driving people away.
“People vote with their feet,” Ron DeSantis told Fox News in June, suggesting that California is “hemorrhaging wealth” and residents to Florida because of its low tax and debt burden. (The number of Californians moving to Florida is relatively small but growing.)
California is undoubtedly expensive. Per capita spending last year on housing, utilities, healthcare, food and gasoline was the fourth highest in the country, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — behind only Washington, D.C., Massachusetts and Alaska.
But Florida is not substantially cheaper. It ranks 14th for per capita spending on these basics, with the average Floridian paying about 8% less last year than the average Californian. Rising housing costs and a collapsing insurance market are contributing to a growing affordability crisis in Florida as well.
The two states diverge more on taxes. California’s state and local tax burden, as a share of income, was the fifth-highest in the country last year, according to the Tax Foundation, a conservative think tank, while Florida’s was 39th. Florida notably does not have a personal income tax.
Gavin Newsom often defends California’s tax system by pointing out that it is highly progressive, meaning the wealthiest residents pay far higher rates than the poorest. Middle-class families have a smaller tax burden than in dozens of other states — though not Florida.
Because of its reliance on sales and property taxes, however, Florida’s regressive tax system falls disproportionately on the poor. Low-income families there face a higher tax burden than low-income Californians, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank, while also receiving help from a less-generous social safety net.
Thus, in the latest Census Bureau analysis, Florida had the third-highest poverty rate in the country last year — after Washington, D.C., and California.