Californians may still love the beautiful weather, spectacular beaches, and breathtaking mountains, but more and more they are fed up with the costs associated with living in the Golden State. Between the outrageous cost of housing, socialistic taxes, and the entire state having been declared a “sanctuary” for illegal aliens, people are picking up and fleeing to lower-cost states such Nevada, Arizona, and Texas.
The chief reason for heading east is the cost of housing—both in terms of purchase and rent. The median price for a three-bedroom home where I live, in the greater San Francisco Bay Area region, is nearly $800,000. In the County of San Francisco, the media price is over $1.2 million! That means to qualify for an 80 percent loan a buyer needs over $300,000 cash to make the down payment.
In terms of rent, San Francisco ranks as the nation’s most expensive rental market, followed by New York, according to the website Zumper’s top-10 list. San Jose (which is the actually the largest city in the Bay Area) comes in third place, and Oakland in 9th. The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is almost $3,400. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is about $4,500.
And then there are the taxes. Individuals earning $52,000 per year are at taxed at 9.3 percent. After that the tax brackets escalate to 13.3 percent for those making $1 million. California sales tax is at least 7.5 percent, depending on the city. Property taxes are low by percentage (1 percent), but pricy due to the high cost of real estate. The state gas tax currently totals 58-cents per gallon and, because of a new law, could rise another 72-cents in 2020!
Of course, we can’t forget the insane sanctuary laws. Thanks to elected officials like Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf who, in February, gave criminal aliens a heads-up that ICE was on the way, some 800 bad guys targeted by ICE slipped away. Doesn’t make me feel safe knowing that such lowlifes are on the loose. How bad are some of these dudes? As I write this, three aliens who avoided capture in February have since been nabbed by the Feds. One was a Mexican national originally arrested for robbery and gun crimes—but was released back into the community despite an ICE detainer request in November! Another Mexican national was just busted for a DUI, despite having been deported three times and having prior convictions for false imprisonment, DUI and battery of a spouse. The third was a Mexican national who was arrested for corporal injury of a spouse; he had previously been deported twice with criminal convictions including drug possession, hit-and-run, DUIs, possessions of narcotics equipment and a parole violation.
Despite California’s efforts to shield criminal illegal aliens from arrest by the Federal Government, this year alone ICE has arrested nearly 9,000 illegal aliens in California, which is 15 percent of the total number arrested in the entire country. Who knows how many are still out there?
According to the latest U.S. Census data, from July 2016 to July 2017, more people moved out of California to other states than moved in from other states. It’s called domestic out-migration. During that 12-month period, California saw a net loss of just over 138,000 people, while Texas had a net increase of more than 79,000 people. Arizona gained more than 63,000 residents, and Nevada gained more than 38,000.
Data from United Van Lines shows some of the most popular moving destinations for Californians from 2015 to 2017 were Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. Other experts say Nevada remains a top destination.
Internal Revenue Service data illustrates that the middle-class and middle-age residents are the ones leaving. Even Republican California Congressman Devin Nunes took a swipe at his own state recently in a tweet, calling it out for the “highest taxes in USA that make it hard for people to afford to live there.”