New York Governor Kathy Hochul is publicly asking wealthy former residents to move back to New York — four years after she famously told Republicans to leave. Speaking at Politico’s Albany Summit in March 2026, Hochul acknowledged that the state’s tax base had collapsed and urged supporters to travel to Palm Beach, Florida, and recruit high-earners to return. The reversal is as stark as the numbers that forced it.
The Line That Aged Poorly
In October 2022, on the campaign trail, Hochul delivered a line that became a conservative rallying cry: “If you don’t like it here in New York, you can leave. There’s a bus that goes down to Florida where you belong.” It drew applause from the progressive crowd and made national headlines. She won re-election that November.
What she didn’t anticipate — or chose not to acknowledge — was that people would actually take her up on it.
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
Over the past several years, more than 125,000 New York residents relocated to Florida alone. They didn’t just take their bodies — they took their income. Nearly $14 billion in adjusted gross income left the state with them, according to IRS migration data. That’s tax revenue New York no longer collects.
The fiscal damage has been severe. New York now faces a $2.2 billion budget deficit. State spending on healthcare, education, and social programs remains among the highest in the country, but the high-earners who were expected to fund those programs have been steadily departing for states with no income tax.
The situation got even more alarming when 2024 data showed that Texas had surpassed New York as the state with the most financial services employees. For a state whose economic identity has long been anchored to Wall Street, that milestone was a seismic warning sign. The financial sector — the engine that has powered New York’s tax base for generations — is quietly relocating.
A Governor in an Awkward Position
At the Albany Summit, Hochul didn’t sugarcoat the situation. She said “our tax base has been eroded” and encouraged attendees to travel to Palm Beach to “see who you can bring back home.” Her rationale was candid: New York needs wealthy residents to fund its “generous social programs.” Without them, those programs face deep cuts — or middle-class New Yorkers face higher taxes to make up the difference.
But the reversal has placed Hochul in a politically impossible spot. While she’s asking wealthy exiles to come home, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pushing in the opposite direction — advocating loudly for higher taxes on the wealthy. The mixed message from New York’s top Democratic leaders isn’t lost on the people they’re trying to recruit. The pitch from Albany: “We want you back.” The pitch from City Hall: “When you get here, we’ll take more of what you earn.” Those two messages cannot coexist, and wealthy individuals making relocation decisions tend to be acutely sensitive to tax environments.
What This Means for New Yorkers Who Stayed
New York’s fiscal crisis is a case study in what happens when a state prices out its own tax base. When high earners leave, the burden doesn’t disappear — it shifts to everyone who stays. Middle-class New Yorkers are already carrying some of the heaviest state and local tax loads in the country. If the exodus continues and the wealthy don’t return, the choice facing Albany isn’t between spending more or taxing the rich more — it’s between cutting services or raising taxes on the people who are left. Neither option is politically comfortable, and neither addresses the underlying reality: the policies that drove residents out are still largely in place.
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