And The Winner Is…

Illinois! The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois has lost more residents than any other state for the third consecutive year:

For the third consecutive year, Illinois has lost more residents than any other state, losing 37,508 people in 2016, which puts its population at the lowest it has been in nearly a decade, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday.

Illinois is among just eight states to lose residents, putting its population at 12,801,539 people, its lowest since about 2009. Illinois’ population first began to drop in 2014, when the state lost 11,961 people. That number more than doubled in 2015, with a loss of 28,497 people, and further multiplied in 2016.

If you change your yardstick to domestic outmigration, that is you ignore new immigrants, the state that has lost the largest number of residents is California followed by New York. Illinois still ranks first in domestic outmigration as a percentage of total population. I continue to believe that when the dust has settled and the history of the 2016 election is written, migration from Blue States to Red States will be a major part of that history.

Illinois is a place where people come and stay to work. Very few people live here for the climate or the scenery. Hostility to business and job creation and a generally mercurial government present problems that Illinois needs to change quickly before it’s too late.

It may already be too late. A large proportion of Illinois’s bills are pension payments to public employees who worked when here when Illinois was a bigger state with a bigger, wealthier tax base. A shrinking tax base finds it harder to pay those bills than a growing one would.