NY needs to shift direction ASAP if it wants to stop residents from fleeing

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli just delivered fresh confirmation of the city’s shrinking pandemic-era population, while a new Census Bureau report shows the state still losing residents even post-COVID.

Expect the shrinkage to continue until New York reverses its tilt ever-more leftward.

From April 2020 to July 2022, Gotham’s population fell by nearly a half million people, or 5.3% — wiping out almost three-quarters of the gains over the previous decade, DiNapoli reports, citing Census figures.

That was more than double the state’s 2.6% drop, and it came while the nation overall was expanding by 0.6%.

DiNapoli blames the city’s decline on not enough births and migrants from abroad to make up for “the relatively large number of residents leaving.”

Meanwhile, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday that New York was one of just eight states to see its population dip, by a nation-topping 102,000, in the year ending July 1 — long after the pandemic ended.

By contrast, the South — notably, Florida and Texas, which have no personal incomes taxes — grew during COVID, and accounted for a whopping 87% of the nation’s growth this year, though it holds just 39% of the population.

New York, of course, has watched its share of the nation’s population plunge steadily for decades, as it leaned further and further left.

In the 1940s, the state’s share of the US population translated to 45 House seats; today, it’s just 26.

Certainly, as DiNapoli notes, the shift to remote work, which enabled employees to leave Gotham, accounts for some of the flight.

He also highlights the city’s high cost of living and raising a family.

Yet the drivers of those high costs are New York’s nation-leading and ever-growing tax burden, self-defeating housing rules, onerous business mandates, insane climate laws and so on.

Add in its crime-fueling policies and failing schools, and it’s beyond obvious that it’s the relentless progressive agenda that’s driving people away.

Yet the usual suspects want more of the same: The far-left Working Families Party orders candidates seeking its endorsement now to back a mind-blowing $40 billion tax hike, letting non-citizens vote and legalizing drug-injection sites.

Honey, they shrunk New York — and if the progs aren’t stopped, they’ll keep bleeding the state and city until they’ve sucked all the life out.