The drumbeat of people leaving New York state goes on, a new finding shows, with the equivalent of the populations of Columbia and Washington counties heading for warmer, less costly and lower-taxed Sunbelt states in 2014.

Out-migration is nothing new, but two demographers recently updated the statistical portrait of the trend, and it's eye-opening.

The Empire State lost 126,000 tax filers in 2014 to other states, the largest number among all 50 states, according to Wendell Cox and Joel Kotkin, who published their findings in newgeography.com, a website devoted to demographic, economic and political trends. The study also appeared in Forbes magazine.

To be sure, New York and the rest of the nation is continuing to gain population. But that can be a function of immigration, especially in New York City, which remains a magnet for newcomers from across the globe.

Ron Deutsch, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a labor-backed think tank, noted that the state has actually grown between 2010 and 2014, when the population hit nearly 19.7 million.

This study, however, focused on people who are on the tax rolls and on migration patterns between the various states, not from overseas.

In 2014, New York saw the largest drop in the number of residents who departed for other states, with 126,800 fewer tax filers than the year before.

Illinois lost the second greatest number of "domestic migrants" at 82,000, followed by California with a loss of 57,900.

Texas, Florida and South Carolina got the most domestic migrants from other states with 229,300, 114,400 and 30,100, respectively.

New York also lost the most "high earners," who reported more than $200,000 in annual income, according to the study.

"New York has been leading the nation in domestic migration for decades," Cox said.

Like others who have looked at these trends, Cox said a difficult business climate and high property taxes are big factors in pushing people out of the state.

And he believes much of upstate continues to reel from the long-term deindustrialization.

But he adds there's another trend: the rising cost of buying a home downstate, which he describes as the Lower Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island.

"The property taxes are bad, but they are on top of an even worse situation in terms of affordability," Cox said.

As an example, he pointed to an "income ratio" for housing that lays out how many years of average pay it takes to buy a house in a given area.

In 1990, a person earning around $50,000 would on average have to work three years to buy an average-priced $150,000 home. But with the cost of an average home in some areas hovering around $300,000, that ratio has gone up to six years.

Rather than simple inflation or supply-and-demand, Cox is critical of what he says are overly restrictive zoning laws in many suburban communities, which discourage density and drive up the entry cost for a home.

"When we force house prices up, we increase the level of poverty," he said.

Still others took issue with the study. While Cox and Kotkin looked at the number of high earners who are leaving, Deutsch pointed to a recent Stanford University study that found people who earn at least $1 million per year are less likely than others to move. These "persistent millionaires," according to earlier research, are more likely than the general population to have family ties that keep them in place, as well as businesses they own in a given spot.

These debates come as the state Legislature in 2017 will have to decide whether to extend a so-called "millionaires' tax" created in 2009.

Business groups say an extension of the surcharge would further drive out wealthy taxpayers, while groups like the Fiscal Policy Institute argue that income taxes aren't necessarily the reason that millionaires decided to stay or leave the state.

In light of the trend, Richard Azzopardi, spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo said:

"The fact is that under this administration, New York has a record number of private sector jobs, an unemployment number below the national average, and passed reforms that led to the lowest middle class taxes in 70 years, the lowest corporate tax rates since 1968 and the lowest manufacturing tax rate since 1917 and a property tax cap."

rkarlin@timesunion.com • 518-454-5758 • @RickKarlinTU