California lost 216,000 residents in 2025 alone.
Now Florida just lapped them on the global stage.
One state chose freedom, one chose taxes, and the scoreboard just updated.
DeSantis Built This Over Eight Years While Blue States Were Busy Raising Taxes
Florida's economy just hit $1.8 trillion – up 6.3% in a single year – vaulting the Sunshine State past Australia and Mexico to claim the No. 14 spot among the world's largest economies.
That number didn't happen by accident.
Ron DeSantis has spent nearly eight years cutting taxes, paying down debt, and shrinking the government while Florida's population exploded.
The results are in: $9.7 billion in total tax relief delivered to Floridians since 2019.
More than 50% of all state debt accumulated since statehood – repaid ahead of schedule.
A $3.8 billion projected budget surplus heading into Fiscal Year 2027.
Meanwhile, New York carries more than $6,500 in state debt per resident.
Florida's figure? Less than $1,000.
That's not a rounding error – that's a governing philosophy made visible in a spreadsheet.
Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Wilson put it plainly: "We're trying to grow the private sector and shrink the government sector."
https://twitter.com/jimicee457679/status/2080263783151292849?s=20
New York has lost 800,000 residents in four years.
Illinois ranks 48th nationally in domestic migration – ahead of only California and New York in the volume of people fleeing.
California hemorrhaged 229,000 net domestic residents in 2025 while Los Angeles County alone shed 54,000 people.
Their response? Proposals for retroactive wealth taxes and a $30-per-hour minimum wage in Los Angeles.
Wilson called it what it is: "A death spiral."
Florida Is Now Competing With Countries Not States
The Florida Chamber Foundation's 2030 Blueprint targets the world's top 10 economies by the end of the decade.
South Korea sits at No. 13 – Florida needs roughly 2% additional growth to pass it.
That's not a fantasy.
Florida leads the nation in new business startups and manufacturing job growth.
In 2025 alone, nearly 698,000 new businesses formed in the state.
Major corporations aren't just visiting Florida – they're planting flags.
Microsoft anchored its Latin America headquarters in Miami's Brickell district.
Citadel expanded its footprint.
Central Florida's modeling-and-simulation industry has grown to an $11.6 billion sector – a niche most Americans have never heard of, quietly becoming a national security asset.
And then there's the number that should terrify every blue-state governor in America: over $4 million in net wealth flows into Florida every single hour.
Every hour.
That money isn't coming back.
California loses $4.5 billion in revenue annually from outmigration – and those losses compound every year thereafter.
New York shed $111 billion in net adjusted gross income between 2011 and 2021 alone.
When the wealthy leave, the people who remain face higher taxes to cover the gap – which drives more people out – which raises taxes again.
That feedback loop is exactly what Illinois, New York, and California are living through right now.
Blue States Cannot Undo Decades of Socialist Policy With a Press Release
The Florida model took 20 years to build.
Mark Wilson said it directly: "This has been part of a 20-year plan – from the governor to the legislature to nearly all of us in the business community."
You can't replicate that with a press release.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2080267889454551200?s=20
California's response to its budget crisis has been to study a retroactive wealth tax – meaning politicians want to tax money residents already earned and legally moved out of state.
Illinois carries unfunded pension liabilities so severe that credit agencies have ranked them the worst in the nation – a structural hole that tax hikes can't fill because every hike accelerates the exodus.
These aren't policy disagreements – they're mathematical facts playing out in real time across two different governing models.
One model says: keep what you earn, build what you want, start a business without a bureaucrat's permission.
The other model says: you owe us more, and if you leave, we'll find a way to follow you.
Florida is now the world's 14th largest economy.
California is still California – just with fewer Californians.
Sources:
- Mark Wilson, "Florida Chamber of Commerce Announces Florida is World's 14th Largest Economy," Fox Business, July 2026.
- Florida Governor's Office, "Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Florida Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget," Executive Office of the Governor, June 2026.
- Heritage Foundation, "Florida's Tax Strategy Sets a National Example," May 2026.
- National Taxpayers Union Foundation, "Florida Continues to Attract New Residents; New York, California, and Illinois Lose the Most Population," August 2025.
- Florida Corporate News, "Florida's Economic Rise: Where Florida Ranks in Gross State Product," April 2026.
