Sep 13, 2022

Study: Nebraska ranks high among states that lost young and wealthy

Posted Sep 13, 2022 2:19 PM

By CINDY GONZALEZ
Nebraska Examiner

OMAHA — Nebraska ranked 10th in an analysis by a financial advice website that looked at which states (and the District of Columbia) are losing the most young rich professionals.

To uncover losers and gainers, SmartAsset.com examined migration trends, inflow and outflow patterns, from 2019 to 2020.

The researchers considered people younger than 35 years with adjusted gross incomes of at least $100,000. They used Internal Revenue Service data to compare where they lived from year to year.

In Nebraska, SmartAsset said, 722 rich young professionals moved to the state between 2019 and 2020, compared to 820 who moved out of the state during that same time period. That’s a net loss of 98.

The state that gained the most rich young professionals, Texas, had a net gain of 3,823.

Among the findings was that two states without state income tax — Texas and Florida — took the top spots for where wealthy millennials moved to. Other popular destinations were Washington, Colorado and New Jersey.

Places that lost the most high-earning young workers that year were, respectively, New York, California, Illinois, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Louisiana, North Dakota, Virginia, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

The researchers said they did not look at more recent data related to the pandemic and therefore could not say whether remote work might have made a difference.