New Jersey is projected to lose a seat in Congress in the next (2010) census because of population loss:
While some of the people leaving New Jersey are undoubtedly Baby Boomers aging into retirement, Hughes said New Jersey is no different from other states in this regard. A more likely culprit is the area's high cost of living, and its impact on the job market, he said.
"In the 1990s, we had the comfortable notion that we had a unique labor force, and the new Information Age jobs were willing to pay the high cost of staying here," he said. "But what we've seen so far in this decade is that the information economy jobs are stagnating in the Northeast but growing at higher rates in the Sun Belt."
New Jersey is not alone in facing this problem and its effect in Washington. If the population pattern holds, New York will lose two House seats and Pennsylvania will lose one and possibly another.
Sure, the weather's great down here, but there's another reason. "High cost of staying here" actually means "getting the meshuggah taxed out of you". That is why all these pro athletes live down here. Two things that Rush Limbaugh, Tiger Woods and I have in common is that we live in Florida and pay no state income tax.
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