NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) – Across all income levels, more people moved out of New York City than moved in last year, according to a new study from the Citizens’ Budget Commission.
The study released Monday found that after two years of solid growth, the city’s overall population declined in 2025. It’s driven by a 70% drop in international migration and the loss of New Yorkers to other areas.
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In 2025, New York City lost 114,000 more New Yorkers to other U.S. cities than it gained. It’s an uptick from 2024, but still much lower than pandemic-era highs.
Who is leaving NYC?
In 2024, New York City lost more low- and middle-income residents than it did high-income residents, the study found. Between 2023 and 2024, more New Yorkers with incomes in the bottom 40% left the city than residents with incomes in the top 40%.
Typically, people leaving New York City earn more than people moving into the city.
“The loss of working- and middle-class residents likely reflects the high cost of living and perhaps the quality of services, including schools,” the commission’s report reads. “High taxes may also be a factor, especially for high-income households.”
Millennials are leaving New York City more than any other generation. Hispanic New Yorkers are leaving faster than their white and Black neighbors.
It’s important demographic context as Mayor Zohran Mamdani pursues increased taxes on wealthy New Yorkers. Some, including President Donald Trump, fear millionaires will flee the city en masse if Mamdani gets his proposed income and corporate tax hikes.
But Mamdani has repeatedly refuted this claim, instead emphasizing the recent exodus of lower-income residents.
“For all of that conversation about this imagined exodus, we have to reckon with the very real exodus that we are seeing in this city: an exodus of working-class people,” he said at a recent Tax Day forum.
The study found that New York City is having a harder time attracting millionaires, but the millionaire population still doubled between 2010 and 2022.
Most people who leave the city stay in the region, moving to places like Long Island and New Jersey, which also have relatively high tax rates. If they are leaving the area, New Yorkers most commonly move to Florida, California, and Texas.
Emily Rahhal is a digital reporter who has covered New York City since 2023 after reporting in Los Angeles for years. She joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of her work here and follow her on Twitter here.
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