By: Mark Glennon and John Klingner*
The Internal Revenue Service on Friday released its annual numbers on taxpayer interstate migration, which are for changes from 2022 to 2023. In several ways, these numbers are more important than census numbers because they measure income taxpayers and are precise — the IRS knows and reports how many taxpayers changed their residence from one state to another.
Here are the key takeaways for Illinois:
- For the year, Illinois lost 54,000 people (tax filers and their dependents), to net domestic out migration. That’s the 3rd most in the nation, behind only California and New York.
- The annual incomes of people moving out of Illinois are far bigger than for those moving in — $104,000 vs. $79,000.
- From 2000 through 2023, Illinois lost 780,000 net taxpayers (filers) to out-migration.
- Adding in those taxpayers’ dependents, Illinois lost 1.6 million net residents to out-migration from 2000 through 2023.
- Most importantly, since 2000, $94 billion of Adjusted Gross Income left with departing taxpayers. That’s just for the first year after departure. Assuming they continued to work, the true aggregate total is far higher.
Details are in the charts shown.
On the surface, it may appear that Illinois’ rate of loss declined in that the number of taxpayer leaving with their income was less than recent years, as you can see in the charts. However, that reduction is likely attributable to the sharp decline in moves of any kind — to a record low. 2023 saw the fewest amount of moves nationwide since the U.S government began tracking the data in the 1940s. That reduction in moves resulted mostly from the sale sclerosis that set in as mortgage interest rates spiked from 2022 to 2023. That left many homeowners reluctant to sell because they did not want to give up the low-rate mortgages they obtained earlier.
Among other states, the biggest winners of taxpayers and income gained were Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Arizona, in that order.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints and John Klingner was earlier its Research Director.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
JB the Hutt still claims that the Illinois population is growing. His ability to proclaim the opposite of reality is breathtaking, even for an Illinois Democrat.
JB the Hutt, dumbest governor in America.
And IL voters dumbest in the nation for believing him. Any doubt that he will be re-elected and will become IL’s longest serving governor?
Trump does the same, but I suppose you’re not complaining about that. It’s the same problem at play but likely forgiven in his case, I’ll, bet even though his versions involve the whole country at a much broader set of circumstances. How can so many MAGA advocates be so two-faced on that issue?
Remember when you guys were screaming “whataboutism”? Or is that concept no longer operative? Two faced indeed.
Trump is a distraction. Illinois has huge financial problems. They cannot print money. What Trump does is not relevant to Illinois’ or the City of Chicago’s problems. Chicago in particular has the most severe challenges. Out-migration particularly on a per capita income basis really matters. And it matters whether a politician publicly concurs with the data. Pointing out what MAGA advocates does does nothing to solve the relevant problems.
I didn’t claim it would, making your comment irrelevant. You missed my point.
No you missed my point as to the utter lack of vakue or relevancy to your comment. One instance where you reveal your mediocre education.
Great to see John Klingner blogging again!
As people leave the population pool of people to tax gets smaller while the spending pie gets larger more or less defines the future of Illinois.
Not a good business plan, but that is what Illinois is doing. Chasing away the people that you need the most.
Its unfortunate, those that can will move. Those that can’t will be stuck in this rut. HOWEVER those stuck in this rut , keep voting in the same people. Putzger, Prickwinkle, and now Stratton. And you will NEVER get ahead
Many of the people who “keep voting in the same people” in Illinois are public union members who benefit from the abusive tax and fee policies in place. That’s a big reason why undesirable candidates (to us) keep getting elected and re-elected.
Does Illinois have a larger percentage of residents belonging to public unions than most states? It sure seems it does.
At this point if you are still in Illinois, you really are not smart enough to function in a democratic republic. You should really stay in Illinois and enjoy the aspects of a society more suited to people of similar intellectual ability. Freedom and self determination are not for you.
We all know it’s easier for the wealthy to leave and when the average income of people leaving starts to decline it’s a very bad sign that the pain and cost of moving is starting to overcome even at lower income levels.
The useful idiots in Illinois will continue to vote these progressives into office. What is the ratio of taxpayers to people who don’t pay taxes?
IL votes nearly 45% republican, but the gerrymandering prevents these voters from impacting the outcomes.
I have nothing but praise for Gov. Pritzger and Mayor Jackson. I use the expressways system to visit relatives in Chicago and found that traffic flows more freely than before. I say, keep up the good works, Raise taxes even more to drive even more people out of Chicago, so that very little traffic clogs up the expressways.
Mark & John, great article. Can you provide further breakdowns? How many people with annual incomes over $350,000, $500,000, $750,000 & $1,000,000 have left Illinois vs. people with those same incomes moving into Illinois. It seems to me that the punitive Illinois estate tax is exacerbating the exit of high income, high net worth Illinois residents. None of the growth states that you mentioned: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Arizona have estate taxes.
The brackets only go up to $200,000.
I think many people don’t realize how awful the estate tax in Illinois is. When grandma lives to her 90’s is it going to start hitting the middle class.
To be expected when one can get much more bang for their buck elsewhere, especially those with a fat, government pension. Akin to “ new arrivals “ wiring a large bulk of American money to those left behind, in the billions, something no other country, to my knowledge, allows.
Lots more of this to come in the future. As taxes go much higher (and they will) more and more high-income people will leave the state for greener pastures. Texas and Florida have been growing like wildfire thanks to the heavy taxation of the blue public sector states. My guess is many of the people who read this will end up leaving the state. Let the public sector unions wallow in the mess they have made of the state. The once great Illinois is no more, destroyed by public sector union greed. Wire Points has tried and change it, but… Read more »
We’ve got important elections coming up and, as expected, you guys are playing around with IRS move out data instead of voting stats. This doesn’t help the average reader make better political decisions, it persuades people to leave. Common sense would be focusing on where we could improve and set goals.
The lack of self-awareness of the stupidity in your comments is glaring.
How many people has Wirepoints convinced to register to vote?
Lots of the right people, I suspect. But it’s a fair point that we did not have express GOTV messages, though that’s a different subject than your original comment.
We all know, from countless Wirepoints articles, exactly how many people have left the state and their incomes, but you never write about voter registration, voting trends or suggest what the average person can do to improve Illinois. My guess is voter registration, voter literacy, and taking action, but I lack self awareness.
Have Republicans improved in any areas? Why or why not?
Johnson has a 6% approval rating. How can we take advantage of this and make improvements?
The only voters soon to be left in Illinois are the leeches that love demfilth policies and they are uneducable. Your public schools have “educated’ a populous not capable of anything other than collecting welfare. You live in a garbage dump populated by cockroaches and you want to register the roaches to vote and educate them. Good luck with that.
I doubt very seriously that the people that don’t turn out to vote read Wirepoints. In fact I doubt very seriously if they read much of anything of political importance beyond what they see on social media. It’s Illinois…get used to it.
BTW, Publius, you got a lot of chutzpah bitching and moaning from the peanut gallery after two of our former people, Ted and John, just spent the last six months busting their asses on a very honorable campaign. And plenty of our readers did the same as volunteers on that and other campaigns (including me) or contributing money.
Curious then: overall, whether as candidate, consultant, or as contributor, what is the Wirepoints team’s collective W-L record in the elections in which they were involved?
I have no idea. We have different views on many issues and candidates. That’s their business.
Less than 30% turnout . 1 party rule etc.
Considering most Democrats are running unopposed, what voting decisions can you make? Which issues do you need information about? Reparations, property taxes, aid to illegals, pension debt, bail reform, gerrymandering, etc. If you don’t already know the answers and know there are no remedies aside from leaving, then you deserve to be stuck here. Wirepoints can’t help you.
““I need people who are high-net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state, right?…But maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded.”
New York governor Kathy Hochul, Politico New York Agenda: Albany Summit, March 11, 2026
Once again, these IRS statistics are the most reliable indicators of IL financial trouble. Pritzker and Johnson cannot massage these numbers for their benefit. Important numbers—number of residents that left. Income of those leaving vs incoming. #1, tax base income lost according to AGI. These are IRS numbers, not opinions. Numbers that Pritzker and Democrats ignore every year.
Look for Gov. Lardbutt to tell us not to believe our lying eyes on the GREAT IL-EXIT