Americans flee blue states for lower taxes
Rastegar Capital CEO Ari Rastegar joins ‘Fox News Live’ to debate Americans leaving blue states for decrease taxes and the influence of rising charges on the housing market and supply-side points, together with helium and fertilizer.
CNBC confronted a wave of on-line mockery Monday after releasing its annual quality-of-life rankings, which solely positioned conservative red states in all 10 spots of the “worst places to live” — even as official U.S. Census knowledge exhibits a few of these states are main the nation in population growth.
Critics shortly took to social media to name out the outlet for what they alleged as blatant liberal bias embedded in its rating standards.
Counting down from the tenth-worst place to the primary, CNBC ranked the underside ten states as Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Missouri, Utah, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee. All 10 states are Republican-led and voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.
“CNBC is inserting growing emphasis on Quality of Life, one of many 10 classes of competitiveness in our annual America’s Top States for Business examine,” CNBC’s report states. “It is our annual ranking of every state’s business climate, now in its 20th year. Under this year’s methodology, the category makes up 11.6% of a state’s overall score, up from about ten percent last year. To score the states for quality of life, we use hard data on factors like crime rates, air quality and healthcare. We also consider the cost and availability of childcare, inclusiveness of state laws, and reproductive rights.”
STARBUCKS CUTS JOBS IN SEATTLE AS FORMER CEO HOWARD SCHULTZ BLASTS ‘SOCIALIST’ MAYOR
The state flag of Texas flying within the sky.
The list is a subset of CNBC’s annual “America’s Top States for Business” examine. To decide its “Life, Health and Inclusion” class, the outlet makes use of standards such as crime charges, air high quality, healthcare, and childcare availability. The metric additionally elements closely in ideological insurance policies, explicitly penalizing states for lack of protections in opposition to discrimination and restrictive abortion legal guidelines.
“Some states offer exemplary quality of life. But these ten states do not make the grade,” the CNBC report acknowledged.
“CNBC just dropped their 2026 ‘10 Worst States to Live In’ list … and it’s pure comedy,” conservative commentator Reverend Jordan Wells wrote on X. “Shocking. All deep red, conservative states. But in some way California and New York — with the best taxes within the nation, insane value of residing, and limitless progressive insurance policies — didn’t crack the highest 10?”
“This is correct. Please believe this. Tennessee is HORRIBLE. You definitely shouldn’t move here…,” conservative Newsmax contributor Chrissy Clark wrote with sarcasm.
The company media outlet took direct pictures at native conservative laws throughout the board.
Tennessee was dinged for the state’s “bathroom law” — which requires transgender people to make use of amenities corresponding with their organic intercourse at start — as effectively as a regulation barring localities from passing their very own native antidiscrimination ordinances. The outlet additionally took goal at a joint decision signed by Gov. Bill Lee this previous April designating June as “Nuclear Family Month,” whereas additionally noting it had low rankings for crime and drug deaths.
Utah, ranked sixth-worst, was hit for its $7.25 minimal wage, low availability of childcare suppliers and air high quality. Georgia, the fifth-worst within the survey, was explicitly referred to as out for providing “few protections for LGBTQ+ people, making it one of America’s least inclusive states.”
GOV ABBOTT EXTENDS OFF-RAMP FOR NY BILLIONAIRES FLEEING MAMDANI’S POLICIES
City Skyline of Knoxville, Tennessee. The State was listed as one of many “worst places to live” in CNBC’s rating. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom instantly seized on the examine, taking to X to level out that each single state on the list leaned red.
“Notice something in common?” Newsom posted. “All led by Republicans — many affected by California Derangement Syndrome.”
However, conservatives and impartial commentators famous that on a regular basis Americans are “voting with their feet” in opposition to progressive governance.
“If you hate not paying income taxes, law and order, parental rights, smaller government, school choice, the Second Amendment, and criminal illegal aliens being arrested … Here’s another garbage list from the mainstream media!” Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, posted.
“Actually I noticed something else: The list is a bulls••t list that has nothing to do with quality of life for sane people,” countered conservative activist Robby Starbuck, a Tennessee resident. Starbuck, recognized for efficiently main main company boycotts in opposition to over-the-top DEI insurance policies, added, “It’s all predicated on far left BS… Our states all gained population whereas YOUR state misplaced a report quantity.”
Media persona Patrick Bet-David cited the web migration beneficial properties of the states CNBC criticized, noting that Texas added over 67,000 residents and Tennessee added over 42,000. Georgia and Alabama additionally noticed population influxes.
“’10 worst states’ based on what? CNBC had ‘inclusivity’ as one of its criteria,” Bet-David noted. “The numbers tell a different story.”
The demographic shift highlights a broader post-pandemic exodus from traditionally blue strongholds. While areas throughout the South and Sun Belt expertise financial and population booms, main progressive cities like Boston, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles proceed to bleed residents resulting from excessive taxes, rising crime, and astronomical prices of residing.
SIX DIFFERENT WAYS THAT PROVE THE WEALTHY PAY A LOT MORE THAN THEIR ‘FAIR SHARE’
Los Angeles County has seen its population shrink lately. (Kirby Lee/Getty Images)
U.S. Census Bureau knowledge reveals that Los Angeles County alone has watched its population shrink from roughly 10 million in 2020 all the way down to about 9.7 million as we speak, dropping over 56,000 residents in only a single one-year stretch. Similarly, a current examine by the Citizens Budget Commission confirmed that New York City continues to undergo web unfavorable migration, dropping much more home residents than it beneficial properties.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Fox News Digital reached out to CNBC for remark however didn’t instantly obtain a response.