By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Gov. J.B. Pritzker remains in complete denial about Illinois’ population losses. Last year he rejected the results of the 2020 Decennial Census, saying Illinois grew by 250,000 instead of what the Census actually reported – an 18,000 loss.
This time, he’s pushing back against data just released by the Internal Revenue Service that shows Illinois keeps losing in the battle between the states for people and their wealth. The IRS report “is not migration data” Pritzker’s office claimed, even though the IRS report is titled “U.S. Population Migration Data.”
Gov. Pritzker can continue to avoid reality, but that won’t stop Illinoisans from voting with their feet.
Wirepoints’ 50-state survey of the IRS data based on 2020-2021 tax filings found Illinois lost a net 105,000 residents (tax filers and their dependents) to other states. That was the nation’s third-worst loss of people. Illinois also lost nearly $11 billion in taxable income (adjusted gross income) as a result of the resident flight.
The governor’s dissatisfaction with the IRS findings was covered on Capitol Fax, where Rich Miller’s headline read: Pritzker administration tries to push back on Wirepoints migration report. On top of denying the purpose of the report, the governor went on to highlight a few of the IRS’ own caveats from its Users Guide to try and discredit the results.
That’s a pretty desperate attempt by the governor, considering the IRS itself says its migration reports “are an important source of information detailing the movement of individuals from one location to another.”
Here’s the full description of the data the IRS provides in its guide:
The Migration Data Users guide provides a detailed description of the State-to-State, County-to-County, and Gross Migration files produced by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Statistics of Income (SOI) Division. IRS Migration data for the United States are based on year-to-year address changes reported on individual income tax returns filed with the IRS. They present migration patterns by State or by county and are available for inflows—the number of new residents who moved to a State or county and where they migrated from, and outflows—the number of residents leaving a State or county and where they went. The data also include tabulations on the number of non-migrant returns within a State or county.
The U.S. Census numbers
Pritzker’s office also said the “census report is the standard for determining domestic migration.”
That’s a remarkable statement, considering the governor decried the results of the U.S. 2020 Decennial Census. Pritzker claims Illinois grew 250,000 over the last decade even though the official census data shows Illinois shrunk by 18,000. Illinois was one of just three states to shrink last decade, joining Mississippi and West Virginia.
Wirepoints already covered the census controversy, but in short: the Census Bureau released in May 2022 a post-census “Post-Enumeration Survey” of the decennial 2020 count which concluded that Illinois’ population, among several other states, may have been undercounted.
The PES is a tiny survey, and the Census Bureau says it only serves as a “data quality indicator” with no bearing on the official 2020 count. Wirepoints even called the bureau and got confirmation that Illinois’ 2020 population had shrunk by 18,000 people compared to 2010. But that hasn’t stopped Gov. Pritzker from claiming otherwise.
It’s interesting that Gov. Pritzker is now acknowledging the validity of the Census Bureau’s migration data. Somebody from the Governor’s office must not have told him about the bureau’s most-recent reports that reveal a rapidly shrinking Illinois.
Illinois lost 116,000 residents to domestic out-migration in 2021 and another 142,000 in 2022, according to the Census Bureau’s 2022 National and State Population Estimates.
In all, the state’s population has shrunk by more than 200,000 people since 2020.
Gov. Pritzker was given another chance to finally acknowledge Illinois’ out-migration problems with the release of the IRS data.
Instead, he’s essentially added the IRS to his list of population “carnival barkers” that includes the United Van Lines, U-Haul, the Wall Street Journal and the Census Bureau.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- New IRS migration data: New York, California, Illinois are the nation’s big losers of people and their wealth, Florida, Texas the big winners – A Wirepoints 50-state survey
- The Illinois exodus continues. New IRS data shows the Prairie State is nation’s 3rd-biggest loser of people and wealth to other states
- The Great Re-Sort: New, National Survey Indicates Political Migration Will Soar
- Illinois has been bleeding its wealthiest residents for years. Now it’s Ken Griffin’s turn to leave.
Some Illinois lawmakers continue to deny that covid aid and other federal stimulus bailed the state out of its fiscal mess. But a look at past and projected revenues from COGFA shows just how much the bailouts blew out the state’s revenues. And now that they’re over, how much harder it will be for Illinois revenues to grow.
Election integrity – both real and perceived – is essential to government’s legitimacy and stability. Illinois, like the rest of the nation, better fix its problems now.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about Chicago’s latest bond offering, why Chicago’s dismal home value growth is due to poor policies, the next $70 million to be spent on migrants, the 9% salary hikes demanded by the CTU, and why Illinois lawmakers voting to stop Chicago’s selective enrollment schools from being closed is hypocritical.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 4/21/2024.
Illinois just suffered the lowest presidential primary turnout since 1960, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. Blame voter apathy on a lack of competitive elections. On gerrymandering. On the concern people have, thinking their votes don’t matter. It’s likely a little bit of each.
If Pritzker admitted the IRS migration data, he would basically be admitting that everything Leftist Democrats have done has hurt IL. So he lies, again.
He’s trying to convince us that all of those people who actually make enough money to file tax returns “identify” as Illinois residents. Just like his brother is his “sister.” This slob is a bigger clown than even Blago was!
His cousin, the trans dude is his cousin.
99% of the time when a Dem moves their lips there lying!!
Pritzker is well aware of the truth. He is lying AGAIN. He is deceitful and wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him up alongside the head. It’s common sense, if we don’t have enough tax dollars to pay our bills, it means we’re not collecting enough tax dollars because there’s not enough people to pay taxes. Not too difficult for Pritzker to understand. He has picked winners and losers and won’t stray from those picks. The problem is the system he oversees does not allow for adequate education for those who vote. So those who vote, vote for him.
I was going to upvote you until I read your last sentence. I didn’t vote for him, and I’m working with others to fix the system he’s trying to break. They’re screwing up really bad. I’m going on offense. No more defense for me.
You misinterpreted her last sentence, she’s not advocating a vote for Pritzker.
I am absolutely not advoca
ting a vote for Pritzker.
What is your plan of action?
Paid Trolls and sociopathic predators protecting their own entitlements against truth/math/basic accounting principles will appeal to emotions of lazy, willfully ignorant readers.
Look at link in post below to see that ‘early retirement’ pension entitlements in Illinois equate to an unreachable goal for any other than teachers working 20 years to get $60,000 pensions (rising 3% annually) starting at age 55-58.
https://www.calculator.net/retirement-calculator.html?cagenow=35&cretireage=58&clifeexp=90&cincomenow=70%2C000&cincomeinc=3&cretinclevel=85&crilunit=p&cinvreturn=5&cinflation=3&cotherincome=0&csavingnow=&cannualsave=0&csaveunit=p&ctype=1&x=Calculate
Everyone here knows it, but I’ll say it anyway: Pritzker is an amoral man who will say or do anything to position himself for his POTUS run. He is the kind of person in government who will cast aside all values in favor of whatever he deems will bring him votes. Remember, it was his voice on that FBI tape with Blagojevitch, musing about what position he should be “appointed” to, like he was selecting the color of his next sports car. He had not a care in the world about his own qualifications, just that he knew how the… Read more »
We know he has a messed up relationship with food.
“we don’t know a lot (or even a little) of what he stands for”
Well, he definitely stands for unlimited abortion, transgender mutilation of minors, and pushing woke and LGBTQ++ curricula on school kids.
Have you seen the article about Randi Weingarten? It seems that because she is the president of the American Federation of Teachers and part of the LBGTQ community that she has pushed the curriculum in grade school to kids. This has been going on for years now and I’ve wondered why. She may be the main reason. The governor is on board with this along with transgenderism and abortion.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/very-homophobic-teachers-union-leader-randi-weingarten-says-house-hearing-crossed-the-line-145203434.html
Thank you for sharing this. I had to find out from the comments that Weingarten truly isn’t a mother, she married her wife when her wife’s kids were already grown adults, so MTG raises a reasonable point that Randi has no personal experience of raising school age children. Anyway, simply put, the governor is on board with those things because he lacks critical thinking ability.
Pritzker says no money is leaving Illinois — unless you include the Pritzker Crime Family’s offshore multi-generational tax evasion trust fund
Who must leave Illinois: Any profession not getting State- guaranteed early retirement pension: $60,000 annual starting income guaranteed, with 3% COLA, beginning ~ age 58 after working 20-22 years, plus free health (including life, dental, optical) insurance until Medicare age 65 or beyond. Any non-public employee, in order to buy an annuity paying this amount, would need to save $2.78 million, or $67,125 per year, to earn just the same amount to cover the early retirement defined benefit pension of Illinois teachers, not including the taxpayer-funded insurance. It isn’t even possible to do so in a tax-deferred account because IRS… Read more »
“Any non-public employee, in order to buy an annuity paying this amount, would need to save $2.78 million, or $67,125 per year” Are they saving the money in their mattress? No they wouldn’t need to save that much money per year. Also, 2.78 million dollars used to purchase a joint life annuity at age 58 would result in around 160k per year. You clearly need help with basic financial math. A female in the private sector retiring at age 58 (spouse age 60) would need around 1.2 million to purchase an annuity that paid 70k per year for a joint… Read more »
What was the investment or contributions made by say a teacher over their working career? There is 100% pension pickup in the Rockford school district for teachers. I know of someone who retired a few years ago according to the Better Government Association website (BGA) her contributions was $116K mostly picked up by taxpayers. Did not qualify for the minimum 20 years so she bought some service credit years but was 55. Her pension for 2022 is $54.5K not outrageous but it is 48% return on investment (mostly taxpayer funded) growing at 3%. Total years were 18 with 2 years… Read more »
It makes no difference whether it was picked up by the district or if the district just paid the additional cost of the pension pick up in their salary. Would it make you feel better if they stopped picking it up but just paid them more in their salary. Of course then their salary would be higher for benefit calculations but I’m sure teachers wouldn’t mind.
The example I provided of $300 per month would mean the employee contributed $126,000 over the 35 years for that 70k per year annuity. The power of compounding Freddy.
I agree with the power of compounding then why didn’t the unions hold accountable all the politicians that kicked the pension contribution down the road like the Edgar Ramp.How many billions were lost by the state not properly funding? But recipients don’t care because they get paid regardless if the fund is at 1% or 100%. No risk-No sleepless nights if the market crashes like in 2008-09. No one is looking at pension management funds because most if not all managers are very well politically connected. They are reworking fees in Calpers in CA but what about Illinois. Not a… Read more »
Freddy, you do monitor this topics regularly but apparently have forgotten the multiply posted ruling of the IL Supreme Court ruling circa 2003 when a group of IL public pensioners (firemen, I think) had filed a challenge to the consistent governmental under-funding of their pensions as compared to actuarial standards. The court’s ruling was a dismissal of their challenge in that the IL Constitution requires no particular funding level. They further stated that IL public employees only have two rights: that their pensions be fully paid and paid in a faithfully reliably manner. So, your argument that such pensioners have… Read more »
It doesn’t matter how many times you tell people they still just ignore basic facts.
Drill, drill and drill some more, and hopefully at some point the end result is worth it just as it is in dentistry.
Thanks for clarifying. So if the fireman filed a challenge and lost where does the money go from all the taxes we pay yearly mostly via property taxes? They will never be funded at 100% as long as more people are taking out than putting in. It seems much of the money appropriated to pensions is misappropriated to other areas maybe like Medicaid with an IOU as collateral Here is some info from TRS-. https://www.trsil.org/sites/default/files/documents/ACFR22-web_0.pdf Look at page 1. Payouts were $7.6B but there is a loss of 763M in 2022 but what stood out is unfunded liabilities of $80B… Read more »
I agree with much of your posting here. As regards “where does the money go” I recall your posting and those of a few others who had the same complaint stating they had paid their full required real estate tax presumably including all pension funding specified therein but stating that apparently never solved that funding problem. Two things clearly come to mind as an answer in part at least. First, there is no attempt on the part of some IL governments to fund their pension funds at an actuarially required level. Instead, they are funded at the flip-a-coin level of… Read more »
9.3%! That’s amazing, with that kind of return, the pension funds should have no problem fully funding themselves through returns!
Unfortunately the voters elected leaders that didn’t actuarially fund them. Now taxes will need to increase because of their negligence.
Excellent deflection. A response that has nothing to do with the point made.
My point was spot on. What good is the rate of return if you don’t fund the required actuarial capital necessary to meet obligations.
So while 9.3% is a good return, it’s not enough to make up for the fact that Illinois didn’t fund the pensions with enough money. I’m sorry you can’t comprehend this basic fact.
True that the voters elected them but the politicians were never forthright with their intentions. They lied to the public and retirees to get in and lied to stay in power.They promised anything to large voting groups to get elected. Our pols are worse than George Santos. At least we all know he lies. The pols invest money like they graduated from the Bernie School of Finance.
Here’s an article from Illinois Policy saying TRS investments under performed and is among the worst performing public pension funds and the costs (fees) are very high for fund managers.
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/trs-among-worst-performing-public-pension-funds/
Maybe that’s true for certain years if one has it as an agenda to highlight that sort of cherry-picked truth. First, pick your version of truth and search for cases that support it.
Both TRS investment evaluations might well be true. The one reported 1/4/2023 by TRS covers the average yearly performance over the last 40 years. The one in the article you mentioned covers 10 and 13-year periods which likely are cherry-picked subsets of the same 40-year period. Now, which should carry more weight in the reader’s mind?
Here is a report on past performance is not an indicator of future returns. https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/does-mutual-fund-s-past-performance-predict-its-future It is an interesting analysis. Don’t forget we are now living in some sort of Bizzaro World as you put it. Money is being printed by the boatload/division between people from many angles/political division is cemented to party lines/etc. Stock market gyrations makes it difficult to predict anything even a day out.. Yesterday I heard that they want to increase mortgage rates to people with high credit scores and lower it for those with lower scores basically people who are responsible with their finances will… Read more »
No adult who has an above average IQ and is old enough to have some real financial investment experiences would ever likely believe that past stock performance is anything close to a perfect predictor of future performance as well. Caveat emptor!
I had forgotten that the fireman filed a challenge but they are a small minority when it comes to the overall number of union employees. There are approx 331K firemen/women in the entire U.S(not sure how many in Illinois so I would have liked to see a large group like TRS/AFSCME (90K members) filing a challenge. Their numbers are greater like TRS which have close to 440K members working and retired. Their voice is much louder than the fireman’s just by sheer numbers alone. Did they file a challenge? If not why? Do you have any info on this? Remember… Read more »
You missed the larger meaning of the IL Supreme Court’s and my comment re it, Yes, the challenge was brought by one group of IL public pensioners and/or current employees, presumably firemen if my memory is right. And, yes, firemen would be a small subset of IL public employee retirees and even more so if they are not all receiving pension benefits from the same retirement system, let’s say. Well, you’ve heard that “size doesn’t matter,” and here it’s true! The IL Supreme Court when making reference to the IL Constitution said it made no mandate as to how well… Read more »
I believe that size doesn’t matter is not true when it comes to organized labor. The larger the group the more clout that is wielded. Case in point the TRS has more than 400K members working and retired but if you factor in spouses that voting block will be close to 800K now add in Afscme at 90K plus spouses is close to a 180K voting block and add a few young adults of voting age living at home. Now add up all the other public unions and you get close to 1.5M who are recipients whether working (paycheck) or… Read more »
Your comment here is credible at the very least, and my personal opinion on those issues greatly matches yours. Still, these are side issues to the matters you mentioned earlier to which I replied. Sometimes size matters and sometimes not at all or not so much. There it was/is of no consequence, but in your remarks here it matters greatly.
Thank You!
Freddy, you are always such a polite and considerate guy here, a notable rarity. You are a teacher of sorts on how to get along with your fellow man. We could all learn a lot from you in that regard!
Start putting 6k away a year like the teacher. Invest it in an index and see what you end up with after 20 years assuming historical rates of return. The fact that teachers, as you noted, don’t really contribute towards their own retirement with any bi weekly payroll deductions is at best taxpayer theft. Everyone starting in public service today should be in a 401k style plan and the defined benefit should go away.
Compounding works in reverse when inflation exceeds the real rate of return.
Google on the Weimar Republic to read up on the Ghost of Illinois’ Christmas Future.
Sounds like you are advocating for increasing the 3% AAI pension compounding to something more in the 5-6% range. Wouldn’t want to diminish.
PPF, thank you for your erudite analysis of the power of compounding. I am sure your apparent public school teacher constituents fully understand the investing concept of exponential growth. I expect most teachers would opt out of the government pension scheme and willfully select the defined contribution benefits of a 401k.
No such choice is offered. Considering about 40% of teachers don’t make it to 10 years and receive nothing, I would expect there would be some takers for portability alone. Instead they are forced to join and then deal with all the thieves trying to steal from them because they don’t want taxes to go up.
You’re assuming a consistent 9% return for 40 years? You’re a genius! Why aren’t you a top trader at some hedge fund!
My average rate of return is over 11% for the last 30 years including down years. Not that hard, just as the Illinois pension fund has averaged over 9% for the last 40 years. But you keep hating.
What does any of this have to do with Pritzker’s denial of outmigration facts? His end goal isn’t to protect the pension shell game. Rather, it’s to cover up his gross negligence and mismanagement of the state, to avoid the criticism of his self-perceived image as a leader and to try convincing an apathetic and uninformed public that he is presidential material. He thinks he’s hit a triple in life when, in fact, he was born on third base.
What is sad, their are people of IL. that actually believe this man. These would be the same people that believe the public educational system is great. All student can read and do math at grade level. Everyone graduates. Ignore all numbers. Make up your own.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “The greatest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average Illinois voter”
Remember, Fat Fredo is the stupid brother the family won’t let near the family business. We have idiots in Illinois voting for a rich idiot as governor. Of course he’s going to come up with stupid excuses, because he knows the people that vote for him are too dumb to question him. And Illinois continues to go down the swirling water.
Is there a billionaire who recently made the choice to reside in Illinois? How many multi-millionaires have made the move from Sea/SF/LA/NY/London to Chicago? I’ve heard people in the Bay Area talking about “escaping” to Seattle. I don’t recall anyone ditching the LA/NY scenes for big city midwestern life. For all our supposed positives, Chicago doesn’t seem to be a destination for the already ultra successful.
Kathy’s clown
No matter how you slice it, Illinois has a shrinking tax base. The people leaving make more than the people arriving. The retiree population – exempt from state income taxes – comprises an ever increasing percentage of the state population. Something about squeezing blood from a turnip…
They must not be counting the illegals.
Fun with numbers according to Pigchop.
Taxistan will continue to lose taxpayers as they make a wise financial decision and vote with their feet.
Buh Bye Taxistan Hello a fatter bank account!!
If there was no population loss then it’s is a bunch of nonworking dead beats not being counted
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, right JB? This blowhard is the ultimate snake oil salesman. He’ll never let truth get in the way of a good story. His favorite story is the one about the lying trust fund baby who became president. Follow the science JB! It says your state is a fiscal house of cards about to collapse.
I was a bit surprised that Pritzker decided to even respond to the IRS report, though not by the transparent mendacity of his retort, nor his selection of Miller’s Capital Fax as his media shill-n-tout of choice.
Be nice to see the non ‘Carnival Barker’ media step up and continue to hold JB’s feet to the fire, however I doubt there’s much chance of that happening.
“All is well. Move along, nothing to see here.” When you know that sort of puffery is going to work for you, why change?
The fact that he responded is notable. The data is too indisputable and stark for him to not respond. Wirepoints is doing real investigative journalism and it’s getting reach. We all know the overwhelming majority of people having any reasonable means a) file their taxes and b) use a mailing address in the state they live in.
The important consideration is not how many people are leaving, it’s how many dollars are leaving. If 110,000 people with 6 figure incomes leave and are replaced by 110,000 people with no jobs or McDonalds jobs flipping burgers the state is far worse off.
One needs to frame everything JB says in the context of his wanting to run for POTUS. I’m sure the fat slob has already worked out an income tax strategy to avoid paying his fair share to IL. Wonder how much of it is attributed to his estate in tax free Florida?
Dork Brandon has already thrown his hat back into the ring, so this next cycle is out. Past that, obese slob is a visual that voters in a national contest will have a hard time with—yes this actually matters. People in Illinois are delusional to think this guy actually will play well nationally. Ask Chris Christie.