Comment by jdlshore | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdlshore | Hacker News Reader

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Your claim about California migration sounded biased to me, so I looked up the US census data [1].

  2010: -130,416 (net migration out of California)
  2011: -94,122
  2012: -73,864
  2013: -96,915
  2014: -79,892
  2015: -129,409
  2016: -142,932
  2017: -137,895

Compared to population [2], we get:

  2010: -0.35%
  2011: -0.25%
  2012: -0.19%
  2013: -0.25%
  2014: -0.21%
  2015: -0.33%
  2016: -0.36%
  2017: -0.35%

Conclusion: migration out did spike up starting in 2015. Now, what is it correlated with? You said it was due to taxes, firearms policy, and board policy.

Tax changes in 2014/2015: I didn't see any major tax changes [3].

Firearms policy changes in 2014: Long gun serial numbers required to be recorded on new sales. Police can confiscate guns from high-risk individuals for three weeks (signed in 2014, took effect in 2016). [4]

Firearms policy changes in 2015: Firearm Safety Certificate required for all guns (previously only required for handguns). [4]

Board policy change: Passed in 2018. [5]

My take: Migration out of California has increased, but it's not clear why. My personal guess would be cost of living.

[1] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/geograph... [2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&... [3] http://www.library.ca.gov/Content/pdf/crb/reports/FinalVersi... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California [5] https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-moves-to-mandate-fem...

It correlates well with housing prices:

https://www.zillow.com/ca/home-values/

2012 was the nadir of housing prices, and they've been rising rapidly since 2014.

California is losing lower income population(sub $55k) but it's being replaced at higher rates with higher income($200k+ income). For the economy of California, tax policy is a net benefit as higher income people generate more tax revenue and require less government aid. You could argue it has a negative social aspect as it pushes out lower-income families.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio...

My point is that, taken together, the effects of many of California's policy decisions (which includes tax [which exacerbates people's displeasure with other policies, when they don't go well], which has been bad for a lot longer than just the decade you show) are compounding.

Cost of living is a huge one, but a large part of urban California's cost of living has to do with consumer and [metropolitan] housing policy. It is exceedingly difficult to get anything built in major Californian cities, and once you do have it, the conditions for keeping it are onerous. The various committees and authorities in the state seem to regularly produce unjust outcomes (even from reasonable policies) and don't seem to care when they do.

I think people are broadly willing to pay higher state and local taxes *as long as the services they receive function well, and the outcomes are reasonable.

> My point is that, taken together, the effects of many of California's policy decisions (which includes tax [which exacerbates people's displeasure with other policies, when they don't go well], which has been bad for a lot longer than just the decade you show) are compounding.

I understand your point, I just don't think you've provided the evidence to back it up. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you started with the conclusion ("I don't like CA policy") and then rationalized it from some personal experiences ("people like me are moving out of state"). [1]

California's population is increasing at the same rate as the US as a whole—about 1% per year—even after people leaving is taken into account. To put it another way, CA's population increases about 1.35% per year total, and about 0.35% move to other states. There's nothing particularly interesting going on with the migration numbers that I can see.

[1] Not implying that's what you said or actually think, just that it's what your thought process looks like to me.

> I understand your point, I just don't think you've provided the evidence to back it up. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you started with the conclusion ("I don't like CA policy") and then rationalized it from some personal experiences ("people like me are moving out of state"). [1]

I certainly did not provide much evidence to back anything up, you are right. I'm mainly just sharing my anecdotes: namely that I have made major life decisions based on the relation between tax policy in particular and policy more broadly, and the effect that that has on quality of life.

I do take a bit of issue with the implication that because no particular correlation exists between policies of the last eight years and emigration, that there is no measurable relationship between emigration and policy. I know in the most concrete sense that there are at least a handful of people who primarily justify their choice to avoid or leave California in terms of the direct or proximate impact of policy (and the cost of that undesirable policy in terms of taxes).

The problem with drawing conclusions between emigration & policy is that it ignores the other side of the coin: immigration. There are a number of people who come to California specifically because it embraces the policies you hate: high taxes (with high social services) and gun control. For any large & reasonably controversial issue, the sides balance out, and the net effect on migration is due to more fundamental issues like the availability of jobs & housing (and, of course, the ability to migrate in the first place).

The cause of migration (if it is a fact and not random coincidence) is the result of many different long term things. Changes as fast back as 1990 might be the cause of the current migration. It sometimes takes that long for things to work through the system.

FYI, this is only domestic migration. Overall, California’s population is actually growing

> My take: Migration out of California has increased, but it's not clear why. My personal guess would be cost of living.

Understanding "why" also requires looking at where people are migrating to and why. Quite possible that the destination affects the numbers, especially if it's consistently a common destination, more than the source.

In 2012 there was a significant increase in income and sales taxes which were phased in over several years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_California_Proposition_...

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