We hear it all the time: Hordes of wealthy New Jerseyans are packing up their Lexuses and heading to “friendlier” climates to avoid paying the Garden State’s relatively high income tax rates on the state’s most well-off families or its taxes on inherited wealth.
Yet time and time again, the facts clearly show this isn’t the case, and there is no such “exodus” of wealthy New Jerseyans.
The latest data point to confirm New Jersey’s ability to attract and retain well-off families comes from Phoenix Marketing International’s most recent annual Wealth & Affluent Monitor, which finds that the Garden State now has the third highest share of millionaires in the country, behind only Maryland and Connecticut.
New Jersey climbed to the Number Three spot in 2016 from Number Four in 2015, with the share of millionaires increasing to 7.4 percent from 7.2 percent and the number of millionaires rising to 242,957 from 237,064.
Since 2006, the number of millionaires in New Jersey has increased by more than 35,000 (or 17 percent) while the share of millionaires has risen by 14 percent.
