I watched the first half hour of tonight's debate between California governor Gavin Newsom and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, but that was all I could take. So I have no idea who "won" or "lost."
But just to set the record straight on something I think Newsom didn't make clear enough, it really is true that taxes in California aren't generally higher than in Florida. Florida has higher taxes on the poor and California has higher taxes on the rich:
The working poor are better off in California. The working and middle classes are about the same in both states. The upper middle class and the affluent are taxed less in Florida.
The reason for this is that California's income tax is very progressive. The poor, on average, pay negative tax, and the next two cohorts pay about 1%. It's only for the wealthy that California's income tax becomes significant:
Long story short, the tiresome debating point about people leaving California has nothing to do with taxes. California no longer attracts a lot of people because we don't build enough new housing, which has made it expensive to live here. That's it.
Don't forget fires. And water.
I see your fires and water and raise you hurricanes and alligators.
I'll see your hurricanes (SoCal came close this season...) and alligators, and raise you droughts and earthquakes 🙂
King tides and sea level rise.
California may not have the Keys, but it has plenty of coastline and deltas and such to be affected by sea level rise.
it's not just the keys; the highest point in florida is only about 340 feet above sea level. Much of California's coastal cities are at about that elevation--LA, for example, is at 305 feet above sea level, and SF ranges from 50-900 feet above sea level. Miami, by comparison, is _six_ feet above sea level.
Near-term sea level rise is a problem to be managed in California; it's an existential threat for Florida.
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Of course this is why Desantis and company always talk about 'income taxes" and never mention "sales taxes" etc.
Maybe the answer to this, like the answer to inflation, is to tie incomes to the factor the Republicans are carping about. For instance, wages should increase (or decrease) with inflation, and income taxes should affect "overall" taxes.
I've probably missed your point (I didn't watch any of the ... debate) but I would think that DeSantis would want to tout Florida's lower sales tax rate versus California's.
Good point. A quick look at the link suggests it’s Florida’s property taxes that are especially tough on working people.
Gotta pay for parks and libraries somehow.
Yeah I think it’s property taxes that give Texas and Florida much higher tax rates than they try to claim. For most middle class people the property taxes are going to more than offset the income tax.
Which is still incorrect. That would only be true if housing costs were the same.
"According to data from the California Association of Realtors (CAR), existing single family homes sold for a median of $859,800 in August 2023."
"The median sale price for a single-family home in the state as of April 2023 is $410,000, according to Florida Realtors."
It is still clearly not true that overall taxes are higher in Florida than California even after accounting for property taxes. It's just a flat out lie.
And we don't build enough new water, and probably don't build enough new power and ...
Anything which depends on an ever-increasing population is inherently unsustainable.
The entire American real estate industry depends on an ever-increasing population.
Thank you. The population of California has almost quadrupled since my family moved there in 1949. Younger people than I am may think the traffic on I-80 or I-24 or I-680 are normal, but I am astounded every time I return to the the SF Bay Area at the burgeoning population and associated development.
Population growth worldwide during that time has more than tripled. This is not sustainable. Expect constant refugee crises, environmental collapse in some areas, drought, deforestation, flooding, diminishing water supplies, wars over resources, and general nastiness. People have been fighting other people for all of our history and prehistory. It will only get worse. What's good for real estate sales will eventually destroy quality of life and maybe even human life itself.
Right now we are focused on conflict in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. Religious hatred and human malevolence will ensure that many more such conflicts occur. It's kind of depressing.
"The population of California has almost quadrupled since my family moved there in 1949"
The population of _Earth_ has almost quadrupled since 1949.
You pointed this out about Texas a while back, too. Both TX & FL are better for the rich than CA; worse for the poor.
"Both TX & FL are better for the rich than CA"
I mean, sorta. Florida certainly isn't better at _generating_ the rich than is California. I guess if you are portably rich and want to live in some oppressively humid flood hazard then, yeah, Florida is better from a strict paying-less-in-taxes-is-my-only-concern perspective.
But plainly that's not what rich people (or regular people, for that matter) truly care about. Query why it is that so many of the very rich live in NYC with its high income taxes when they could all live in a low-tax Dakota (or tax-free Somalia)?
So long as they don't need housing I guess. Since we don't it seems build enough.
wait, I'm legitimately confused, Kevin. I thought your position that housing was not too expensive in CA, which I have thought you were quite wrong about. But did I misunderstand?
Yes you misunderstand.
I was also pleasantly surprised to read Kevin saying that California housing is too expensive because there isn't enough of it.
I read just about everything Kevin posts, and I have come away with the same impression as you - my general sense of his view was that YIMBYs need to stop whining, that young people have always needed to accept less-than-100%-desirable starter homes and can eventually afford to move where they want to later in in life. I've seen him push back a lot against YIMBYs and don't recall him making a case for more housing in California.
DFPaul seems to disagree, so I'm hoping they (or someone else) will point to examples of Kevin being supportive of more housing. I'm sure these examples exist! But I'm with you - I think the balance of Kevin's oeuvre has definitely been downplaying housing costs as an issue.
Drum routinely mentions that California lacks enough housing.
For example: https://jabberwocking.com/why-is-housing-so-damn-expensive/
https://jabberwocking.com/how-many-new-housing-units-do-we-need/
I think where you get your impression is from his conclusion that the housing shortage isn't actually a national problem. In many housing markets things really aren't that terrible. Housing unaffordability is concentrated in a few major cities and especially in California. He also doesn't think it's feasible to make some of those major cities "affordable" via new construction.
The huge differences between housing markets and changes in household composition create huge differences that impact how individuals see the overall situation. Is housing totally unaffordable in the US because a single person in LA can't buy a 2 bedroom house? Or is it all fine because a couple earning the median income in Omaha can buy a small starter home? I get the impression that Drum acknowledges that LA is unaffordable, but what happens in Omaha (and the rest of flyover country) is more relevant to the national situation.
There you go.
This is super helpful and insightful, thank you so much for taking the time to find those posts and summarize your thoughts!
I'm re-reading those posts, and I definitely see your point. I think, as a New Yorker, I may have paid less attention to the first half of statements like "California has a housing shortage. The rest of the country not so much"* and more attention to the second half. New York City is in the rest of the country, and I promise you we very much do have a housing shortage!
I also think when Kevin makes assertions that housing prices have very little to do with homelessness and affordable housing, it's hard to take him seriously on other home abundance issues. Of course high home prices make affordable housing harder to build! I don't understand how you could possibly believe otherwise! No one worries about affordable housing in cities where there is abundant housing. Homelessness is also very correlated with tight housing supply. But Kevin thinks that, for the most part, high home prices are "unrelated to other issues like homelessness and affordable housing."**
Regardless of those points, though, you are absolutely correct that Kevin has repeatedly said that California's high home prices are a result of not enough housing. Thanks again for taking the time to point me to those posts.
*Source: https://jabberwocking.com/housing-update/
**Source: https://jabberwocking.com/housing/
Kevin's point has consistently been that YIMBYs are correct on the merits, but need to realize that they are perpetually doomed to failure because a significant majority of the population doesn't want anything to change.
California no longer attracts a lot of people because ...
it's too crowded. Population doubled in 50 years and the infrastructure didn't keep up. Commuting is a nightmare. Traffic only moves swiftly before 6 AM and after 7 PM. Take a look at some television crime shows from the 1970s. Look at the streets and freeways. Not the cleared-for-filming stuff, but the generic "overhead view of the freeway from a helicopter" kind of thing. The roads are half empty. (And even the cleared-for-filming stuff shows many fewer parked cars on the road.)
You say "too crowded" and then talk about transportation infrastructure that's been built for motor vehicles. California built a transportation infrastructure that has reached its upper limit, and it can't seem to build so much as a decent train line.
"Who needs a car in LA? We've got the best public transit system in the world!" —Ed Valiant, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
It's a good thing Florida doesn't have ANY traffic problems, since its population is also growing faster than roads are being paved.
C'mon. Plenty of places have bad traffic but still manage to grow. Look at Atlanta or Houston.
It's housing. Median single family detached house price is now something like a million dollars in SoCal, and even higher in the Bay Area.
I’m sure poor people in Florida drink and smoke a lot. Are democrats opposed to consumption taxes now? No congestion pricing or toll roads in cities?
This is strange… the sales taxes in Florida are 7%. It’s 6% in Michigan where I live and we have an income tax too. 7.5% in California. Taxes are low in Florida for everyone compare to other states.
You can't read bar graphs very well, can you?
@Justin not to mention sales taxes go as high as 9% in places like Beverly Hills.
@sonofthereturnofaptidude the bar graphs are BS. Even after accounting for property taxes overall taxes are still higher in California.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/23/us-states-where-homeowners-pay-the-most-in-property-taxes.html
Look at the link.
Not sure I understand these charts and Kevin's analysis. Not disputing them, just haven't dug into the underlying data. But, on the surface, I'm not sure how it's possible to say taxes are higher in FL than CA. FL doesn't have any income tax. Sales tax may be higher in FL (it's 7% where I am in FL, no idea what it is in CA) but the difference certainly can't make up for the income tax variance.
I'm sure you can twist numbers to make whatever point you want to make about some segment of the population. But, no tax is better than some tax.
It has to do with where the tax *burden* lies. FL shifts it downwards towards poorer wage-earners while CA shifts it upwards to the wealthy. Kevin's point is that, yes, FL is a better deal tax-wise. If you're already rich or upper middle-class.
Your argument depends upon ignoring property taxes.
Your argument depends on ignoring housing costs.
"According to data from the California Association of Realtors (CAR), existing single family homes sold for a median of $859,800 in August 2023."
"The median sale price for a single-family home in the state as of April 2023 is $410,000, according to Florida Realtors."
There is no way that you can spin it. Overall taxes are most definitely lower in Florida.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/23/us-states-where-homeowners-pay-the-most-in-property-taxes.html
what was the point of this debate supposed to be? a chance for desantis and newsome to get some press attention and nothing else?
Bingo. Both are planning to run for President someday.
I'm pretty confident that neither of them will ever be president.
Um, DeSantis sort of is already running for President. And losing badly to Trump. Newsom's at least smart enough to know when to run and actually have a shot at winning. DeSantis shot his wad, will probably not even come in second (my bet's on Haley landing the coveted nr 2 spot eventually), and probably ditch Florida as soon as he can for a nice sinecture at the Heritage Foundation or something.
I once attended a lecture by the author of one of these "Where to Retire" guides, and he gave some of the best advice I have heard.
Don't let your decision about where to live be guided by some comparison of state and local taxes. Most states are pretty comparable in overall tax burden, and the differences that do exist won't affect your lifestyle that much.
It is far more important to choose somewhere that you really want to live, regardless of the tax burden. He cited cases of people who moved to states where they thought they would save on taxes, and then hated it.
If you're a high net-worth individual who is going to have major multiple income streams as a retiree and don't want to pay a lot of income tax, you probably want to look at how your state taxes that stuff. But that's not most folks. Absolutely you have to weigh that with the question of whether your low-tax haven is actually a decent place to live. Does it have a good healthcare system? Public transportation so you don't have to rely on driving in your later years? Are there educational and cultural institutions that you can take advantage of, or just golf courses? If there's a pandemic, will the governor tell you to fuck off and die so the twenty-somethings can enjoy their nightclubs? Lots of quality of life questions there.
it really is true that taxes in California aren't generally higher than in Florida.
I think California's a much nicer place, personally (with apologies to Floridians). Not a huge fan of humidity. Or batshit crazy gun laws.
And Kevin's right that the primary driver of population loss in California is housing costs. Not taxes.
But that statement of his I've quoted above seems questionable. California's taxes are indeed "generally higher" than Florida's if we look at total state/local tax revenue as a share of gross state product, I'm pretty sure. In other words California's tax burden is higher than Florida's (though structured more progressively).
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Buried lede: even in CA, the poor pay a higher percentage in taxes than anyone other than the 1%.
A couple of comments:
1. A quick perusal of the web indicates that the ten largest cities in Fla have an average population of about 323,000. For Cal the average is about 969,000. My casual observation is that the infrastructure required goes up much faster than the population.
Put it this way, there are three municipalities near me. The one with a population of 2000 has 1 intersection with traffic lights. From memory I can count 12 in the city of 6000. For the city of 40,000 there have to be over a 100.
So I'd expect that it requires much higher taxes to support the much larger cities of Cal compared to Fla.
2. Florida stands to be wiped out by sea level rise, but no coastal state is immune. Sacramento is around 30 to 40 ft above sea level. I'm 70 miles inland and only around 150' above current sea level.