The real state I wonder about is Illinois. Who the hell wants to live in Illinois? Both the state income tax and property tax is absurd and you can easily cross state lines to somewhere cheaper with pretty much the same scenery.
But if you want to live in Chicago or the Chicago suburbs, moving to Milwaukee, Madison, or Indianapolis is not the same. Those cities are smaller and won't have the same job opportunities. You also have a major airport in O'hare which allows for easy travel, while airports in WI and IN are smaller with fewer direct flights.
Plus IL has Northwestern and the University of Illinois, which are top tier research universities supplying a lot of jobs. UW-Madison is also a good school, but not in the same league and the past governor in the WI was not good for their university system.
You can also take a look at how WI and IA handle the COVID situation and it tells you a little about the state governments in those states.
But I would not move back, the cost of living is expensive, and the state has not been doing well financially. I think if I were to move again it would be to Washington, I love rainy weather.
And considering real estate is much cheaper in Chicago, a home that's half as much would offer the same standard of living, when compared to SF.
So you could pay the same amount in property taxes, and less income tax.
CA also has that problem, but not to the degree IL has. IL has fewer high income earners to spread the pain around, and higher debt amounts overall.
It’s part of the reason why land is so much cheaper in IL.
https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_Allow_for_Graduated_Income_...
Agreed the state has financial issues, but it remains unclear if the upper middle class will bear the responsibility.
What will happen now is that IL will increase then 5% income tax to 6% or whatever they have to go meet their needs, and so it will continue to benefit the rich.
Until it gets to a point where the lower income people realize they can make the rich pay more, and vote for marginal income tax rates. That’s when the screws will start getting turned on higher income people.
Once that happens, I would assume anyone with disposable income will have their incomes taxes go up. It only failed 47 to 53 this year, so I imagine it will be soon, but I predict the marginal income tax rates will ratchet up even at a “middle” class household income of $80k+.
And then as more rich people leave, the more the marginal income tax brackets have to be expanded and/or percentages increased.
In any case, there’s no relief until sufficient benefit recipients die, and that stupid COLA is no longer in effect. That is one of the most egregious examples of corruption I have seen. Anyone with high school math can see a 3% annual COLA increase would destroy you unless you had the power to print money.
I’m really curious what this map looks like for last decade instead of just 2017:
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iPUtINXvmFd...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-05/even-befo...
Basically, the families earning $100k+ would be saving 5%+ of state income tax and at least $5k+ in extra property taxes compared to a non debt burdened state and tolls and all the various other taxes that need to be collected to pay for the compounded debt of pensions and whatnot.
[0]: https://www.propertyshark.com/Real-Estate-Reports/2020/07/07...
I have the money to buy and the day the city files for bankruptcy and restructures their pensions is the day I purchase. But not a second sooner.
It’s a bad thing if higher property taxes go towards paying down disproportionate levels of debt.
I almost died when I visited in February.
Did I mention it's the murder capital of the United States?
So for now, I'll stick with Chicago. Should I move, I completely agree the IL suburbs are completely pointless - I can get the same quality of life cheaper almost anywhere in the US. A suburb is a suburb after all, so things like tax rates and property value are all you really need to make much of a decision on.