{"id":10390,"date":"2018-05-09T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10390"},"modified":"2018-05-08T16:27:05","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:27:05","slug":"taxpayer-flight-from-moco-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10390","title":{"rendered":"Taxpayer Flight from MoCo, Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Part Two<\/a>, we detailed how MoCo has experienced an exodus of taxpayer income since 1993.\u00a0 But MoCo is not alone: many large jurisdictions in the Washington region have suffered from taxpayer flight over the last decade.<\/p>\n

Below is a chart showing the net change in tax returns for the ten largest jurisdictions in the region.\u00a0 We show net change for two time periods: the last five years (2011-2016), which include the recovery from the Great Recession, and the last ten years (2006-2016), which include the pre-recession peak, the recession itself and the recovery afterwards.\u00a0 MoCo ranks nine out of ten in both periods with only Fairfax faring worse.\u00a0 Loudoun is the only jurisdiction showing significant in-migration in the last five years while D.C. was comparable to Loudoun over the last ten years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next, we show the net change in adjusted gross income (AGI), measured in 2016 dollars, over the two periods.\u00a0 Once again, MoCo is the second-worst jurisdiction in the region with only Fairfax trailing.\u00a0 Notably, only Loudoun had a net inflow in the last five years and Loudoun, Prince William and Frederick had net inflows in the last ten years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, we show the average AGI of in-migrants vs the average AGI of out-migrants over the two periods.\u00a0 In every jurisdiction except Loudoun (during the 2006-2016 period), in-migrant AGI was lower than out-migrant AGI.\u00a0 MoCo\u2019s gap was the third largest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a bad picture for MoCo and not a very good one for the region as a whole.\u00a0 What is going on here?<\/p>\n

First, as has been previously noted by George Mason Professor Stephen Fuller<\/a>, the entire Washington region\u2019s economy has slowed down since the Great Recession.\u00a0 That is reflected in the deterioration of the numbers above between the last five years and the last ten years.\u00a0 The \u201cnew normal\u201d has not been kind to anyone in this area and that includes MoCo.<\/p>\n

Second, Fairfax has been affected by taxpayer income losses even more than MoCo.\u00a0 Like MoCo, Fairfax is a huge county with huge bills to pay and nightmarish traffic congestion.\u00a0 But Fairfax also shares a long land border with Loudoun, which has grown dramatically in past decades and is currently the nation\u2019s wealthiest county<\/a>.\u00a0 Of the $5.9 billion that Fairfax lost to taxpayer flight in the last decade, $2.5 billion went to Loudoun.<\/p>\n

Third, in addition to the number of taxpayers leaving on net, MoCo\u2019s problem is the big gap in income between those coming in and those leaving.\u00a0 One would expect to see such a gap in places like D.C. and Arlington, the two jurisdictions with the biggest income gaps shown above.\u00a0 That\u2019s because both places attract lots of young people who work in and near downtown D.C. and then move out when they earn more and have kids.\u00a0 That explanation does not work well for MoCo, which has a much lower percentage of young people in its population than D.C. or Arlington<\/a>.\u00a0 And yet MoCo\u2019s gap, which is third in the region, has been significantly bigger than the gaps in Fairfax and Howard, two jurisdictions of similar wealth, in the last five years.<\/p>\n

We have seen how MoCo compares to its large neighbors in tax migration overall.\u00a0 But what about direct inflow and outflow relationships?\u00a0 To whom does MoCo lose income?\u00a0 And from whom does MoCo gain income?\u00a0 We will begin examining that in Part Four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. In Part Two, we detailed how MoCo has experienced an exodus of taxpayer income since 1993.\u00a0 But MoCo is not alone: many large jurisdictions in the Washington region have suffered from taxpayer flight over the last decade. Below is a chart showing the net change in tax returns for the ten largest … Continue reading Taxpayer Flight from MoCo, Part Three<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,338],"tags":[1545,1993,2182],"class_list":["post-10390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-economy","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-economy","tag-taxpayer-flight-series"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2HA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10390"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10399,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390\/revisions\/10399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}