Responding to a question about all of his presumed possible successors supporting higher taxes on the city's wealthiest residents, Mayor Bloomberg doubled down on the dubious assertion that rich people would flee New York if that happened. "If you want to drive out the 1 percent of the people that pay roughly 50 percent of the taxes, or the 10 percent of the people that pay 70-odd percent of the taxes, that's as good a strategy as I know." He added, "It's about as dumb a policy as I can think of." Sounds like someone needs to get into his billion-dollar time machine and correct 2008 Bloomberg.
Indeed, during an interview in 2008 the Mayor scoffed at the idea that rich people would leave New York if their taxes were raised:
"I can only tell you, among my friends, I've never heard one person say I'm going to move out of the city because of the taxes. Not one. Not in all the years I've lived here."
That anecdote is backed up by several studies. Let this Amherst professor and non-billionaire explain:
"Taxes [have] essentially no impact on causing people to leave a state. If you're living in a state and your tax bill goes up by a thousand or two thousand dollars, that ... pales in comparison to what it would cost you to actually move. And it might not be worth it to have to be farther away from your job, farther away from your friends."
