Writing at City Journal, demographers Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox drill down on the exodus from California, who is leaving and what it means. Some key quotes:
The outmigration does not seem to have reached a peak. Roughly half of state residents, according to a 2019 UC Berkeley poll, have considered leaving. In Los Angeles, according to a USC survey, 10 percent plan to move out this year.
The comforting tale that only the old, bitter, and uneducated are moving out simply does not withstand scrutiny. (snip) About 77 percent of the increase came among those in their prime earning years of 35 to 64.
Nor is it primarily an exodus of the poor driving the trend. (snip) Indeed, 38 percent of the increase came among the over-$100,000 category.
Somewhere in the blizzard of bad news for CA, there is a snowflake with the DrsC’s names on it. We look back, more in sorrow than in anger, on the excellence that existed and was frittered away via bad public decisions. In the years between can-do Gov. Pat Brown and his can’t-do son Gov. Jerry Brown, CA lost its way.
