Texas Crushes New York’s Job Market

City skyline at sunset with modern skyscrapers.

Texas created eight times more jobs than New York over the past six years, and the gap isn’t closing—it’s accelerating with policy choices that make the Empire State less competitive by the day.

Story Snapshot

New York lost 966,209 residents to other states between 2020 and 2024, ranking among the nation’s worst performers
Texas added 1.358 million jobs since February 2020 while New York managed just 161,700—an 8-to-1 ratio
New York City posted the second-largest population outflow in 2025, with 45 percent of departing residents heading south
States with lower tax burdens and lighter regulations consistently outperform high-tax states in attracting businesses and workers

The Numbers Tell a Brutal Story

New York’s employment stagnation isn’t a recent phenomenon tied to any single politician or proposal. The data stretches back to February 2020, revealing a structural problem that predates current debates. While Texas generated 1.358 million nonfarm jobs during this period, New York limped along with 161,700. Even recent monthly figures show Texas adding 146,300 jobs compared to New York’s 87,900. These aren’t marginal differences—they represent a fundamental divergence in economic trajectories between states that embrace business growth and those that burden it.

Where New Yorkers Are Actually Going

Bank of America Institute’s migration tracking reveals that New York City residents aren’t just leaving—they’re fleeing with purpose and direction. More than 45 percent head to southern states, with Miami alone capturing over 7 percent of departures. Austin topped the nation’s growth charts in 2025, pulling residents from San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and increasingly from New York City itself. Interestingly, Philadelphia attracted more than one in four New York City transplants, suggesting that some New Yorkers prioritize staying near family and networks even as they escape unaffordable costs. U-Haul’s 2025 Growth Index confirms the pattern: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina ranked as top destinations while New York joined California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts at the bottom.

The Policy Divide That Drives the Exodus

States compete for residents and businesses through tax policy, regulatory frameworks, and cost of living. The analysis is clear: states imposing harsh costs on entrepreneurs and individuals underperform those with lighter governmental burdens. Florida and Texas offer no state income tax, streamlined regulations, and lower costs of doing business. New York and California pile on taxes, compliance costs, and bureaucratic hurdles that drive companies to reconsider their locations. This isn’t ideological posturing—it’s market reality playing out in moving trucks and employment statistics. The Texas Demographic Center notes that large populations naturally generate migration volumes, but the direction of net migration reveals which states win and which lose the competition for talent and capital.

What Higher Taxes Would Accelerate

The research doesn’t provide specific details about proposed tax increases, but the trajectory is predictable based on existing patterns. New York already operates at a competitive disadvantage. Any policy that increases the tax burden on businesses or high earners would intensify the existing exodus by widening the gap between New York’s costs and Texas’s advantages. The Dallas Federal Reserve warns that areas experiencing the largest recent inflows are now seeing sharp outflows, pointing to softening labor markets. This dynamic suggests that even attractive destination states face limits when costs rise. New York doesn’t have the luxury of testing how much additional burden residents and businesses will tolerate before leaving—the exodus is already underway at scale.

Conservative principles consistently prove correct in state-to-state competition: lower taxes attract investment, lighter regulations encourage entrepreneurship, and fiscal discipline creates opportunity. New York’s population loss of nearly one million residents in four years represents families voting with their feet against policies that prioritize government spending over economic freedom. The 8-to-1 job creation advantage Texas enjoys over New York isn’t luck or geography—it’s the predictable outcome of policy choices. When government treats businesses as resources to extract rather than partners to cultivate, those businesses leave. When states tax success aggressively, successful people relocate. The data supports what common sense already suggests: people and capital flow toward freedom and opportunity, away from burden and constraint.