Caterpillar moves to Texas, along with thousands of other Illinoisans

Caterpillar’s move from #Illinois to #Texas encapsulates the lopsided migration relationship between the two states. Illinois, with its fiscal, economic and governance problems, is the big loser to a state with low taxes, fewer regulations and fiscal stability.

https://wirepoints.org/caterpillar-executives-to-join-the-nearly-400000-illinoisans-who-have-left-for-texas-since-2000-wirepoints/

Not only does the IRS report that Illinois loses thousands of taxpayers and their dependents to Texas every year, but the Illinoisans who move there are far wealthier than the Texans who move into Illinois.

Since 2000, more than 395,000 Illinoisans have made the move to Texas, but only about 236,000 Texans have made the reverse journey, according to the IRS’ annual migration data.

That’s left Illinois with a net loss to the Lone Star State over the last two decades of nearly 160,000 residents – equal to about the population of Naperville.

Overall, Illinois has lost a net 1.37 million people (tax filers and their dependents) to other states since 2000. Only New York and Alaska have lost more people than Illinois when measured on a percent of population basis.

The tax filers who left Illinois for Texas in the latest year reported by the IRS had, on average, adjusted gross incomes of more than $106,000. In contrast, the Texans who moved into Illinois earned on average just $71,000.

That’s a record gap of $35,000 in 2020. Count on the CAT personnel who do move to Texas to make that income gap even bigger. The top five CAT executives alone took in $16 million in salaries and $55 million in total compensation last year, according to Salary.com.

The loss of Caterpillar is yet another sign that the state’s taxpayer subsidies and a devotion to “woke” causes can’t make Illinois attractive to businesses.

What’s actually attractive are low taxes, fewer regulations, less corruption and fiscal stability. Until Illinois embraces those policies, big names like Caterpillar and Boeing will continue to join the more than one million residents who have fled the state over the past two decades.