Data Doesn’t Support Millionaires Fleeing Mamdani Narrative

Hating on New York City for a living

A friend shared this Twitter/X post, and I first thought, well, this is on-brand politically. But with a little research, it is clear that this headline is also wildly misleading. After I read the piece, the first thing I did was ask Grok, the native AI on Twitter/X, for a reality check. I found that even Grok thought it was bad, despite the cesspool that is Twitter/X:

The headline sensationalizes both the mechanism and the causation.

While I have many friends in the real estate section of the tabloid, a few months ago I had coffee with a business editor in another section at the NY Post who characterized their job (paraphrased) as “finding stories about New Yorkers fleeing the city.” This was shared in a very matter-of-fact way.

This was admittedly my small PTSD experience, as it reminded me of the significant amount of misinformation I had to read through during the recent NYC mayoral election. I pushed back publicly using fact-based research, and I shared a few Housing Notes posts below on the topic — separating anecdotal from actual housing data.

The NY Post story is deliberately misleading

The Citizen’s Budget Committee (CBC) is an amazing resource for New Yorkers, and this particular study was the source for the NY Post story. It is important to point out that:

The CBC report refers to the New York State economy from 2010 to 2022, not New York City’s economy — no overlap with the pied-à-terre tax or the new Mayor.
The image of the current NYC mayor that the tabloid used was opportunistic, meant to drive anti-socialist messaging, yet he wasn’t the mayor in 2022! In fact, he was not a household name until July of 2025, when he burst onto the political scene after winning the primary. He first won elected office in 2020 as a New York State Assembly member.
The report showed that the number of millionaires actually doubled to ~70,000 by 2022. In other words, New York added high-income filers but lost ground relative to the national growth of top earners and to competitor states like California, Florida and Texas, which all gained share. Nothing new here in our understanding of the pandemic era, just confirmation.
Florida and Texas were the beneficiaries of massive inbound migration from the Northeast and California following the pandemic lockdown. That inflated migration period essentially ended at least a year ago.

Because New York’s State and City budgets rely heavily on personal income taxes paid by a very small group of high earners, losing the millionaire share translates directly into less revenue. Filers over $1 million in adjusted gross income account for less than 1 percent of New York filers but paid roughly 40 percent of the City’s personal income tax and a similar share at the state level in 2022. If New York had simply maintained its 2010 share of U.S. millionaires, the State and City together would have collected about $12–$13 billion more in personal income tax revenue in 2022, rather than $7-$8 billion.

The headline has nothing to do with the Pied-à-Terre (PAT) Tax or having a “socialist” mayor. Of course, I would think the PAT will produce some millionaires. California, Florida and Texas all increased their shares of the national millionaire population over the same period that New York’s fell, strengthening their own fiscal positions. The key to NYC’s economic success is striking a balance between serving the long-neglected overall population and not ignoring or demonizing the wealthy.

The CBC report being cited

The Hidden Cost of New York’s Shrinking Millionaire Share, by the Citizens Budget Commission, has a wealth (pun intended) of information to consider regarding the future direction of NYC.

New York State’s share of the nation’s millionaires shrank from 12.7 percent to 8.7 percent between 2010 and 2022, even though it has more millionaires than ever. Other states (Florida, Texas, California) are gaining them faster. Since a tiny sliver of top earners covers a huge chunk of city and state taxes, that relative drop in millionaires cost New York roughly $11–13 billion in tax revenue in 2022 alone. It’s called “hidden” because more individuals and higher revenue mask the fact that New York is losing ground to the rest of the country in terms of higher-net-worth individuals.

Final thoughts

A NY Post story blamed the mayor and the new pied-à-terre tax for wealthy New Yorkers fleeing, but the CBC report it cited covers 2010–2022, and the tax didn’t even take effect until July 2026, making the claimed cause impossible. In reality, NY’s millionaire count nearly doubled to ~70,000 by 2022, but its national share shrank (from 12.7 percent to 8.7 percent) as Florida, Texas, and California grew faster, largely due to pandemic-era migration that has since cooled. Since the top 1 percent pay about 40 percent of NYC’s income taxes, that lost ground cost the city and state roughly $11–13 billion in 2022 revenue.

It’s hard enough to keep up with the news, but to spend the time to make it accurate is nearly impossible.

The actual final thought — Let’s find out.

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