The New York Post recently reported that, during the first quarter of 2022, a total of 54,039 adult residents of five Democratic states hightailed to Florida.
The Department of Highway Safety tallied 21,546 New Yorkers who swapped driver's licenses for Sunshine State ones, a 12% increase from 19,238 in the first quarter of 2021.
New Jersey ranked second, with 10,580 drivers switching to Florida licenses, followed by California with 9,645.
Moving to Florida from Illinois were 8,149 drivers, and 4,119 from Connecticut.
All five high-tax, dysfunctional states have a Democratic trifecta controlling the governorship and both legislative houses. Florida has a Republican trifecta.
Moreover, between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021, Florida's population soared by 243,000 residents, or 1.1%, from 21,538,000 to 21,781,000. If it hasn't already done so, the Sunshine State will exceed 22 million residents during the second half of this year.
By contrast, between April 2020 and July 2021, the Census Bureau reports a collective loss of 844,000 residents, in four of these five Democratic-run deplorable states.
New York's population plunged from 20,201,000 to 19,836,000, for a 365,000 loss, or a staggering 1.8%. New York City accounted for 92% of the state's decline, with a mind-bogglingly decline of 336,00 residents, or 3.8%, from 8,804,000 to 8,468,000.
Illinois had the second largest percentage drop, 1.1%, from 12,823,000 to 12,671,000, or a 152,000 loss.
California lost 300,000 residents, or 0.8%, from 39,538,000 to 39,238,000. San Francisco's population plunged by 59,000, or a humongous 6.8%, from 874,000 to 815,000.
New Jersey's decline was 27,000 residents, from 9,294,000 to 9,267,000, or 0.3%.
Connecticut's population remained unchanged during those 15 months at 3,606,000, as a result of the thousands of families with school-age children who fled New York City's deteriorating public schools, for excellent ones in affluent commuter towns in Fairfield County, including Greenwich, Westport and New Canaan.
In contrast to the combined loss of 844,000 residents in Democratic-mismanaged New York, California, Illinois and New Jersey, the population of four other Southern states with a Republican trifecta — Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee — increased by a combined 607,000 residents between April 2020 and July 2021.
Texas led with a 382,000 increase, or 1.3%, from 29,146,000 to 29,528,000.
Georgia's increase was 88,000, or 0.8%, from 10,712,000 to 10,800,000.
South Carolina grew by 73,000, or 1.4%, from 5,118,000 to 5,191,000.
Tennessee's growth was 64,000 residents, or 0.9%, from 6,911,000 to 6,975,000.
Adding Florida's 243,000 population growth to the 607,000 increase of these four well-run, Republican trifecta states equals 850,000, which slightly exceeds the combined loss of 844,000 residents in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California.
Moreover, E.J. McMahon, Empire Center's founder, just documented, using IRS tax returns for 2019 and 2020, that 45,000 affluent former residents of New York, with an average annual income of $156,000, had relocated to Florida.
New Jersey, during these two years, welcomed 47,000 prosperous New Yorkers, whose average income was $114,000. Many Garden State suburbs of NYC have first-rate public schools, while some other cities in the region cannot claim first-rate public school ranking(s).
Thirdly, Connecticut attracted 20,000 rich former New Yorkers, with an average income of $177,000.
Not only have white middle-class and upper-class residents of NYC been participating in this Great Exodus, but also Black and Hispanic residents.
The Black population of the Big Apple dropped by 84,000, from 1,861,000 in 2010 to 1,777,000 in 2020, or 4.5%.
However, few Asian Americans have been moving to Florida,from dystopian Democratic states. In 2021, whites were 53% of the Sunshine State's 21.8 million residents; Hispanics, 26%; Blacks, 17%; but Asians, only 3%.
By contrast, Asian Americans were 1,211,000, or 14.3%, of NYC's population of 8,468,000 last year. And they were 1,785,000, or 9%, of the state's 19,836,000 residents.
Asian New Yorkers are the highest performing K-12 students among the four major racial or ethnic groups. In 8thgrade math on the 2019 Nation's Report Card, 31% of Asian New Yorkers scored at the advanced level. Fifteen percent of whites, and only 3% each of Blacks and Hispanics achieved at this level.
Many Asian American families want gifted-and-talented programs for their children, and tristate New York is the nation's leading metro area for elite STEM public high schools.
Florida should follow Virginia's lead and create state-run, multi-county, high-performing STEM high schools in the four most-populous metro areas: Miami-Broward-Palm Beach; Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater; Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford; and Jacksonville.
Furthermore, Florida universities should promote themselves as beacons of unrestricted freedom of speech and robust scholarly inquiry. They should also remain unwaveringly opposed to the latest pernicious educational ideologies of the Radical Left, which include abolishing meritocracies, and agitating for racial and ethnic quotas.
During the third decade of the 21st century, Florida must also upgrade its universities. While New York has 11 universities on U.S. News & World Report's list of the nation's Top 100 universities, Florida has only three.
Mark Schulte is a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science. Read Mark Schulte's Reports — More Here.
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