When it comes to population, low tax states are growing and high tax states are declining.
U.S. Census Bureau population data, U-Haul and United Van Lines datasets give a window into population shifts between states. These recent datasets confirm a trend that has been observed for many years – Americans are choosing to move to low-tax states.
This is good news for the Sooner State, but it could be better. Oklahoma is growing, but not as much as it could be. As Oklahoma policymakers work to improve our tax code’s competitiveness, boosting population growth should add to their urgency to keep up with recent tax reform in dozens of other states.
There are myriad reasons any one individual relocates from one state to another, but taking in the aggregate, the numbers don’t lie: People, by and large, prefer to live in states with low taxes.
