Make No Mistake About It, NJ Taxpayers: the NJEA Wants Higher Property Taxes. Ex-NJEA Pres. Spiller Says the Quiet Part Out Loud.
May 11, 2026Earlier this week, we wrote about how New Jersey’s most powerful special interest, the NJEA, really does want higher property taxes. It’s no coincidence that New Jersey has among the highest property taxes in the nation. Unfortunately for New Jersey, high taxes have consequences, as a recent Tax Foundation study of 2025 interstate migration patterns confirmed. Once again New Jersey is one of the biggest losers of people and wealth.
New Jersey 42nd out of 50. As shown in the chart below, New Jersey lost a net -0.32% of its population to other states, which ranked 42nd among the 50 states. All told, a net -29,871 people left New Jersey, which resulted in a loss of -19,370 tax returns and -$2.56 billion of adjustable gross income. That translates into a loss of -$132,163 per tax return, which is well above the state median income of $103,556. So, for another year, New Jersey continued to be one of the biggest losers of people and wealth to other states.
Top five and bottom five plus. Here are the top five states for net population gain with their Tax Foundation tax competitiveness ranking in parentheses):
- 1. South Carolina: 1.12% (#29)
- 2. Delaware: 0.77% (#24)
- 3. Idaho: 0.66% (#9)
- 4. North Carolina: 0.65% (#13)
- 5. Tennessee: 0.61% (#8)
And the bottom five (plus New Jersey) for net population loss:
- 42. New Jersey: -0.32% (#49)
- 46. Illinois: -0.43% (#38)
- 47. Hawaii: -0.47% (#41)
- 48. California: -0.51% (#48)
- 49. Alaska: -0.57% (#4)
- 50. New York: -0.8% (#50)
High taxes lead to outmigration of people and wealth. There are many reasons why people move from one state to another — jobs, family, retirement — but high taxes are one of them. The Tax Foundation determined that about 11% of moves are due to taxes. The data:
… confirm a clear negative relationship between top marginal individual income tax rates and net per capita migration. States with no individual income tax (Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Nevada, and others) consistently rank among the strongest gainers, while states with the highest top rates (California at 13.3 percent, New York at 10.9 percent, and New Jersey at 10.75 percent) dominate the list of largest losers.
That relationship is certainly borne out by the states losing the most population as listed above (save Alaska, which is a predictable outlier), and it is borne out by New Jersey.
The bottom line: high-tax New Jersey continues to lose people, taxpayers, and wealth to other states.