Furious president of Palm Beach think tank slams ‘small’ Florida critics who claim Americans are fleeing the Sunshine State – and insists it’s still a ‘paradise’

The president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute hit back at critics who say Americans are leaving Florida after moving there under false pretenses, insisting the Sunshine State is “America’s paradise.”

While hundreds of thousands became Florida residents in 2022, lured by the promise of beautiful weather, no income taxes and generally lower costs, nearly 500,000 residents left that same year.

Some of those who left blamed rising insurance costs, a hostile political climate, worsening traffic and extreme weather.

Paul du Quenoy, president of the Florida think tank Palm Beach Freedom Institute, wrote a scathing one New York Post op-ed condemning critics who suggest the Sunshine State is anything but divine.

‘Florida is actually booming, popular, happy and free. It is indeed America’s own paradise,” Du Quenoy said.

“Our net gain of 249,064 people in 2022 was the largest of any state in the union, just as it was the previous two years — while blue state crime rates soared and most Democrat-run major cities turned into underpopulated crime wastelands and decay.’

While many who took part in the national migration south have fallen in love with the state, others have grown tired of the extreme heat, hurricanes, dangerous native animals such as crocodiles and alligators, and the rising cost of living.

Florida experienced population growth during the pandemic, with more than 700,000 people moving there in 2022, but census data showed nearly 500,000 people left that same year.

NBC News digital senior policy reporter Shannon Pettypiece interviewed former Floridians who felt the Sunshine State wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.

“Based on just one wildly misrepresented statistic and interviews with exactly five disgruntled ex-Floridians, it paints our state as a nightmarish place, groaning under high costs, worsening traffic, scarcer services and – what else? – extreme weather,” du Quenoy said.

“At least she didn’t bore us with a predictable rant about alligators (responsible for 30 fatalities in the past 76 years, six fewer than the number of New Yorkers murdered in January 2023).”

“Although Pettypiece claims that nearly 500,000 people moved from Florida in 2022, it hardly acknowledges the fact that more than 700,000 people moved that year, and that the number of new residents in Florida is rapidly increasing compared to the number of people moving away.” , he said.

The state with the largest number of transplants to Florida was New York: 90,000 people left the Empire State for Florida in 2022.

One New York transplant was Louis Rotkowitz, who spent two years in Florida before moving north again and settling in North Carolina.

“Like any good New Yorker, this is the place you want to go. It’s a complete misconception.’

After landing a job as a general practitioner while his wife took up teaching, he quickly fell in love with the area as it took him more than an hour to commute to and from work.

Then the cost of homeowners association dues doubled, essentially ending any Florida dream he might have had.

When it comes to getting insurance to keep a roof over your head, home insurance rose 42 percent to about $6,000 per year in 2023, with the state’s wild weather conditions following a series of hurricanes and the floods that followed.

When it comes to auto insurance, coverage in Florida is a whopping 50 percent higher than the national average.

As far as work goes, things are nothing to write back to your old house about, as the average salary in Florida is among the lowest in the country.

The state has an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent – ​​well below the national average of 3.9 percent, but wages are also among the lowest.

‘I had a good salary, but we could barely make ends meet. We had zero quality of life,” Rotkowitz said.

Rotkowitz also felt uneasy about a new 2023 law that allows people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

“Everyone walks around there with guns,” he said. “I consider myself a conservative man, but if you want to carry a gun, you have to have a permit, there has to be some kind of procedure.”

Barb Carter moved to Florida from Kansas to be closer to her grandchildren, but decided it wasn’t for her after an armadillo infestation in her home caused $9,000 in damage.

She said Hurricane Ian caused the roof of her house to explode and she struggled to find a doctor who could remove a tumor from her liver.

“A lot of people ask, ‘Why would you go back to Kansas?’ I tell them all the same thing: You need to take off your holiday glasses,” Carter said.

‘To me it was very falsely promoted. When I lived there, I thought: this is not the only thing you came up with this for.’

Du Quenoy’s piece highlighted the fact that people from the North are moving to Florida.

A tweet from the Palm Beach Freedom Institute told critics: “Enjoy your high taxes, terrible crime rates and earthquakes.”

“It is not surprising that the four states with the largest net migration in 2022 were radical Democrat-controlled New York, California, Illinois and New Jersey,” du Quenoy said.

“New York City alone has lost more than 400,000 people since 2020. So many of the state’s residents left that that year’s census cost New York a seat in Congress, while Florida gained one.”

Du Quenoy acknowledged some of the former residents’ complaints, such as heavy traffic and difficulty finding doctors, but said this is because people are flocking to the state.

“These inconveniences are a byproduct of Florida’s overwhelming success rather than symptoms of a perceived shortage,” he said.

“The simple fact is that people want to be here, not where she is, in greater numbers than ever before.”