Understanding Net AGI and Cumulative AGI

When Americans move between states, they take their income with them. Vote With Your Feet tracks that movement using two measures: Net AGI and Cumulative AGI. Both draw from the same IRS data, but they answer different questions — and together, they tell a much fuller story than either one alone.

What is AGI?

Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) is the total taxable income reported on a federal tax return. It includes wages, salaries, investment income, retirement distributions, and business income, minus certain deductions. When the IRS tracks migration, it matches individual tax returns year over year, identifying not just who moved but how much income moved with them.

Net AGI: How Much Income Moved

Net AGI is the straightforward measure. It takes the total income that moved into a state and subtracts the total income that moved out. A positive number means the state gained income through migration; a negative number means it lost income.

This is the figure reported directly in the IRS Statistics of Income migration tables. It tells you the scale of income transfer in a given year or across the full period — how many dollars were packed up and relocated.

Net AGI answers the question: How much income changed states?

For example, between 2012 and 2022, Florida gained approximately $196 billion in Net AGI from other states, while California lost approximately $102 billion.

Cumulative AGI: What That Income Became

Net AGI captures the moment of transfer, but income doesn’t freeze when it crosses a state line. A taxpayer who moved to Florida in 2013 didn’t just bring one year of earnings — they brought a career, a spending pattern, and a tax footprint that continued generating economic activity year after year. In a growing economy, that income becomes worth more over time.

Cumulative AGI accounts for this. It measures the total economic value that migrated income has generated across the full study period, adjusted for how each state’s economy has grown.

Cumulative AGI answers the question: What was that migrated income ultimately worth?

Here’s an intuitive way to think about it. A $10 billion inflow into Florida in 2013 didn’t just sit at $10 billion. Florida’s total AGI grew by roughly 95% between 2012 and 2022. That means the 2013 inflow, as a share of Florida’s economy, was effectively revalued upward over the following decade — and it contributed to the state’s tax base, consumer spending, and economic output every single year along the way. Cumulative AGI captures all of those compounding years of contribution, not just the initial transfer.

How Cumulative AGI Is Calculated

The calculation works in three steps.

First, for each year, we take the net income that moved in or out and express it as a share of the state’s total AGI. This tells us how significant the migration was relative to the size of the economy.

Second, we scale those shares forward using the state’s actual income growth. If a state’s total AGI doubled over the period, earlier inflows are revalued at that higher level — just as an investment grows with the market. This produces a Persistent AGI figure for each year: the current value of all income that has migrated into or out of the state since 2012.

Third, we add up the Persistent AGI figures across every year in the study period. Each year’s persistent stock represents income that was actively contributing to the state’s economy during that year. Summing them produces Cumulative AGI — the total income-years gained or lost.

The baseline is 2012, matching the Vote With Your Feet dataset. All states start at zero, and flows are accumulated forward from there.

Why Both Measures Matter

Net AGI and Cumulative AGI are complementary. Neither one replaces the other.

Net AGI is concrete and verifiable. It comes directly from IRS data with minimal transformation. It’s the right number to cite when discussing the raw scale of migration or when comparing year-over-year trends. It answers: how much moved, and when?

Cumulative AGI reveals the long-term stakes. It shows why early, consistent migration matters more than late or sporadic movement — and why the same dollar amount of inflow is worth more to a fast-growing state than a slow-growing one. It answers: what did that movement actually cost or contribute over time?

The gap between the two numbers is itself informative. When Cumulative AGI is dramatically larger than Net AGI, it signals that a state’s migration gains (or losses) were front-loaded and amplified by strong economic growth. When the two numbers are closer together, it suggests migration was more recent or the state’s growth was modest.

Example: Florida vs. Texas

Both Florida and Texas are major migration winners, but their Cumulative AGI figures diverge sharply.

Florida received roughly $196 billion in Net AGI inflows between 2012 and 2022. But because those inflows arrived early, arrived consistently, and grew within an economy whose total AGI nearly doubled, Florida’s Cumulative AGI exceeds $1 trillion.

Texas received roughly $54 billion in Net AGI inflows over the same period — still substantial, but smaller and less front-loaded than Florida’s. Combined with somewhat slower AGI growth (62% vs. Florida’s 95%), Texas’s Cumulative AGI is significantly lower.

The difference isn’t just about who attracted more people. It’s about when the income arrived and how fast the economy around it grew. Cumulative AGI captures both.

All figures are based on IRS Statistics of Income migration data (Table 2) and state-level AGI totals. The study period covers tax years 2012 through 2022. For more detail on data sources and methodology, see Data & Definitions.