By Adam Pagnucco.
This series has looked at the exodus of taxpayer income from Montgomery County in recent years. But it turns out that we are not the only jurisdiction in the region with a problem. Here are the biggest losers of adjusted gross income (AGI) in the last decade along with a couple gainers. All AGI is in inflation-adjusted 2021 dollars.
Fairfax County, VA
Net Loss in AGI, 2011-21: $9.309 Billion
Fairfax is one of two jurisdictions in the region to lose more AGI than MoCo (down $6.8 billion) over the last decade. The biggest single destination of out-migrating Fairfax AGI is Loudoun County, which has received a total transfer from Fairfax of $3.2 billion in the last ten years.
District of Columbia
Net Loss in AGI, 2011-21: $7.801 Billion
D.C. usually loses taxpayer income, both in terms of net return outmigration and the fact that in-migrants make less than out-migrants. But its losses greatly accelerated during the pandemic, possibly in part because of telework. We shall see if this is a blip or a trend.
Arlington County, VA
Net Loss in AGI, 2011-21: $5.663 Billion
Arlington’s taxpayer income losses look like D.C.’s – smaller losses after the Great Recession followed by bigger losses in the pandemic. Again, was the pandemic a blip or a new trend?
Prince George’s County, MD
Net Loss in AGI, 2011-21: $2.702 Billion
Relative to its population, the losses in Prince George’s are the smallest among the region’s top four jurisdictions. However, since Prince George’s has some of the cheapest housing in the region, it should be doing better.
These two jurisdictions have enjoyed net inflows of taxpayer income over the last decade.
Loudoun County, VA
Net Gain in AGI, 2011-21: $1.734 Billion
Loudoun has been one of the fastest growing and one of the wealthiest counties in the nation for years. However, it lost $36 million in taxpayer income in 2021. Is Loudoun slowing down?
Frederick County, MD
Net Gain in AGI, 2011-21: $626 Million
Frederick may be the new growth king of the Washington region as it drains ever larger sums of taxpayer income from Montgomery County. The pandemic is part of the story but the inflow began before then.
With the exceptions of Loudoun and Frederick counties, most of the region has been seeing net outflows of taxpayer income over the last decade as shown in the chart below. (Negative values are inflows.)
Why is this happening? We shall consider some theories in the conclusion.