The LA County Exodus Is Worse Than Thought

It seems that Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, and their other government compadres are not popular at all. It’s common knowledge that people are leaving California in droves; especially damaging are the millionaires and corporations leaving. Still, no one realized that it was this bad.

We have a daughter and son-in-law who live in El Dorado County. They have two kids in college, and a third is a senior in high school. As soon as the youngest leaves for college, they will move out of California. Our guess is that they will head to Nevada to stay close to where the kids attend college. They, like so many others, are tired of the outrageous cost of everything, the taxes, and the overall bureaucracy.

Between July of 2024 and July of 2025, estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that 53,421 people fled Newsom’s hellhole, also known as Los Angeles County. That was the largest population drop of any county in the nation for a one-year period.

Los Angeles was once a thriving city. After years of poor governance, corruption, high taxes, high crime, rising living costs, opportunity, and a deteriorating quality of life, Los Angeles is no longer “The City of Angels.”

When people leave, they take their income with them. That means that the county’s and the state's tax revenue is drying up one salary at a time. Months ago, I wrote a column that Newsom, in his infinite wisdom, once tried to devise a method to still tax those who fled the state. Obvious nonsense, that was never going to happen.

Robert Rivani, Founder of Rivani, put it this way:

"There is a real sense of burnout. They are paying insane taxes and getting absolutely nothing in return.” Rivani has seen a big migration of companies moving their headquarters to his Miami building from California, including Playboy,-- he told Fox News Digital.

"People feel like they’re living in a place that’s draining them financially, and in exchange, they’re dealing with rising crime, shrinking services, and a sense that everyone around them is trying to leave too."

"When I moved my family and my company here, everyone thought I was crazy. They were convinced LA was going to bounce back and that the problems were temporary. I saw the writing on the wall, and Miami has proven over and over that we made the right call.”

Compass's Chad Carroll also told Fox News Digital.

"It isn’t just one factor; it’s the breaking point phenomenon. The taxes, the lack of safety, the red tape. I have a client from California whose home was broken into twice in the past six months. The whole political landscape there is destroying the state."

"These are individuals who have spent their lives building businesses and wealth, and they feel that California has become a place that takes everything and gives back very little in terms of safety, infrastructure, and opportunity."

Carroll, an alum of "Million Dollar Listing Miami," and Rivani argue people are gravitating toward places where their “money stretches further, and they feel welcome.”

"Real estate value is driven by demand and the quality of the surrounding tax base. When the top 1 percent flee, they take the tax revenue that funds the parks, the police, and the schools with them, and that has a major trickle-down effect. You can’t lose 300,000 residents, specifically high-earners, and expect your property values to keep pace with the growth we’re seeing in the Sunbelt."

Rivani Added:

"Those services are what keep a city functional. If you don’t have the tax base to support them, everything declines. And when the government’s only answer is to tax whoever is left even more, you create a vicious cycle where even more people pack up and go.”

Carroll continued:

"The numbers don't lie, and they should be a big wake-up call. We are seeing a historic wealth transfer that is going to define the foreseeable future of U.S. real estate. With the rise of the tech and finance sectors in Miami and West Palm Beach, the Sunbelt is the new frontier of American success."

Rivani then summed it up this way:

"Los Angeles is not the Hollywood star it once was, and I don’t think it can return to that. The government running it today has created a reality that people don’t want to live in, and it’s extremely hard to reverse that kind of decline. Once a city loses its shine, it’s almost impossible to get it back. The polls show the leading candidates for governor are Republican, which tells you how fed up people are with the direction of the state. It would take a lot of reform to bring it back to its glory days."

California, not just LA County, is in a rapid decline, and yet the Democrats think the governor who created this disaster is the best person to run the entire country as President.

No, that’s not going to happen.

Happy Easter!