ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — President Donald Trump says people are moving out of New York "like never before," but the reality of population changes in the president's home state is more complicated.
In a series of tweets early Tuesday, Trump blamed high taxes and the state's leaders for prompting people to move.
Even though its overall population of 19.5 million is up slightly from the 2010 census, New York saw small year-to-year dips in population in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Population declines in the 1970s, however, were much larger. E.J. McMahon, of the Albany-based Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, called Trump's comments "kind of half true," noting that New York leads the nation in losing residents to other states.
Immigrants moving in from other countries have helped offset those declines.
