Illinois Lost a Net $6.0B in Income to Other States
IRS data: Illinois lost a net $6.0B of adjusted gross income to other states in 2022-23, third worst of any state.
- Source Briefing
- Data feed
Illinois lost a net $6.0 billion of adjusted gross income to other states in 2022-23, the third-largest loss of any state, according to our analysis of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) state-to-state migration files. Only California ($11.9 billion) and New York ($9.9 billion) lost more.
Why it matters
Chicago developers, lenders and brokers price demand off who is staying and who is spending. A $6.0 billion net outflow of income is the dollar side of the population story, and it measures money leaving the state, not just headcount. It is a statewide number, and the Chicago-area movers are shown below.
The news that moved today. Free email. Every weekday morning.
The numbers
The IRS counts the adjusted gross income (AGI) on tax returns that changed state between filing years. Illinois sent out $6.0 billion more than it took in. Among the states we track, only California (-$11.9 billion) and New York (-$9.9 billion) were worse, and Massachusetts (-$4.0 billion) was close behind. Our companion migration story shows 157,337 people moved from the Chicago area to other states in 2022-23 while 116,485 moved in, a net loss of 40,852 people. Florida took the most Chicago-area movers. The series covers domestic moves only.
What’s next
The IRS has not published 2023-24 files, so 2022-23 is the latest year. We will update when the next file is released. More local coverage is on the Chicago market page.
Method note: net income is the IRS state inflow file minus the state outflow file for 2022-23, adjusted gross income in billions of dollars, domestic moves only. The IRS counts tax filers and their claimed dependents, so it does not cover every mover. The data is public: IRS Statistics of Income migration data.
On the record
Net adjusted gross income moved between states in 2022-23, computed by subtracting IRS state outflow from state inflow ('Total Migration-US' rows), Illinois -$6.0B in billions
Our data · irs.gov
Primary record
- Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income migration dataState-to-state and county-to-county migration data, 2022-23