According to an article in the Heritage Foundation written by EJ Antoni, this exodus is a direct response to New York’s obscenely high taxes.

Compared with other states, New Yorkers:

• Pay the highest total tax burden and highest share of personal income (14%) in taxes.
• Endure the second-worst overall business tax climate.
• Face the highest individual income tax rate and income tax collections per capita.
• Pay the second-highest state and local corporate income tax collections per capita.
• Have the fourth-highest property taxes and local sales tax rate (on average),
• Pay the highest cigarette taxes and ninth-highest gasoline taxes.
• Pay the sixth-highest capital-stock tax rate.
• Are tied for third-highest estate tax rate.

And what do New Yorkers get for all these taxes? Roads smooth as glass? The best airports in the world? Trains running on time? Bulletproof electric grid and water infrastructure? Ample police to maintain safety and order? Not even close states the commentary written by the author Etoni.

Instead, New York City residents face some of the highest crime rates in the world, thanks to soft-on-crime policies from liberal politicians. And people everywhere across the state are threatened by a looming municipal debt crisis. Notwithstanding its sky’s-the-limit tax policies, New York has accumulated the highest state and local debt per capita in the nation.

And the future is not bright. When people flee the state, they take their jobs and money with them. That hamstrings future revenue collection for a state that has never learned to spend within its means. But the days of being rescued by tycoons like J.P. Morgan are long gone. Absent a federal bailout, both New York state and New York City are on a collision course with first grade mathematics—and bankruptcy.