Furious president of Palm Beach think tank slams 'petty' Florida critics who claim Americans are fleeing sunshine state - and insists it is still 'paradise'

The president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute hit back at critics who claimed Americans are leaving Florida after moving there under false pretenses and insists that the Sunshine State is 'America's paradise.'

While hundreds of thousands became Florida residents in 2022 lured by the promise of stunning weather, no income tax and lower costs overall, almost 500,000 left the same year.

Some of those who departed blamed soaring insurance costs, a hostile political environment, worsening traffic and extreme weather. 

Paul du Quenoy, president of Florida think tank Palm Beach Freedom Institute, wrote a scathing New York Post opinion piece slamming critics who suggest the Sunshine State is anything less than divine.

'Florida is in fact booming, popular, happy and free. It is, indeed, America’s own paradise,' du Quenoy said.

'Our 2022 net gain of 249,064 people was the largest of any state in the union, as it was the previous two years — while blue-state crime rates soared and most of our nation’s Democrat-governed big cities turned into underpopulated wastelands of crime and decay.'

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

Florida had a population boom during the pandemic, with more than 700,000 people moving there in 2022, however census data showed almost 500,000 left that same year.  

NBC News digital senior policy reporter Shannon Pettypiece interviewed former Floridians who felt the Sunshine State was not all it was cracked up to be.

'Based on only one grossly misrepresented statistic and interviews with exactly five disgruntled ex-Floridians, it paints our state as a nightmarish place, groaning under high expenses, worsening traffic, scarcer services and — what else? — extreme weather,' du Quenoy said.

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

'While Pettypiece claims almost 500,000 people moved out of Florida in 2022, she barely acknowledges the fact that well over 700,000 moved in that year, and the ratio of new Floridians to those moving away is rapidly increasing,' he said.

The state with the biggest number of transplants to Florida was New York with 90,000 leaving 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 every good New Yorker, this is where you want to go. It's a complete fallacy.'

After getting a job as a primary care physician while his wife set about teaching, he quickly fell out of love with the area as it would take him more than an hour each way to commute to and from work.

Then cost of his homeowners association fees doubled - essentially ending any Floridian dream he might have had. 

When it comes to getting insurance to have a roof over your head, home insurance soared 42 percent in 2023 to around $6,000 per year, with the state's wild weather events to blame, following a series of hurricanes and the flooding that followed.

As for car insurance, getting covered in Florida is a massive 50 percent higher than the national average.

Work wise, things are nothing to write back to your old home about with the median salary in Florida 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 the wages are among the lowest too.

'I had a good salary, but we were barely making ends meet. We had zero quality of life,' Rotkowitz said.

Rotkowitz was also uncomfortable about a new 2023 law that allows people to carry a concealed weapon without a license.

'Everyone is walking around with guns there,' he said. 'I consider myself a conservative guy, but if you want to carry a gun you should be licensed, there should be some sort of process.'

Barb Carter moved to Florida from Kansas to be closer to her grandchildren, but decided it was not for her after an an armadillo infestation in her home caused $9,000 in damages.

She said hurricane Ian blew the roof of her house and she struggled to find a doctor to to remove a tumor from her liver.

'Many people ask, 'Why would you move back to Kansas?' I tell them all the same thing — you've got to take your vacation goggles off,' Carter said. 

'For me, it was very falsely promoted. Once living there, I thought, you know, this isn't all you guys have cracked this up to be, at all.' 

Du Quenoy's piece highlighted the fact that people from the north are moving to Florida.

A tweet from the Palm Beach Freedom Institute said to critics, 'Enjoy your high taxes, terrible crime rate, and earthquakes.'

'Unsurprisingly, the four states with the greatest net out-migration in 2022 were radical-Democrat-governed 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 state residents left, that year’s census cost New York a seat in Congress while Florida gained one.'  

Du Quenoy acknowledge some of the ex-residents complaints such as busy traffic and trouble finding doctors, but said that is because people are flocking to the state.

'These inconveniences are by-products of Florida’s runaway success, rather than symptoms of any supposed deficiency,' he said

'The plain fact is people want to be here, and not where she is, in greater numbers than ever before.'