New Jersey has ranked 50th (dead last) in TIA's Financial State of the States Ranking for the last nine years. That means it had the worst Taxpayer Burden of all the states.  It garnered that same ranking on the Tax Foundation's Business Tax Climate Ranking.  Nevertheless, New Jersey ranked 43rd in net migration per 1000 citizens, which means six other states lost more citizens per 1000. New Jersey did rank number one in some statistics, namely:  the highest revenue from property taxes and the highest percent of outbound moving shipments as reported by United Van Lines.  Are these things connected?  You decide!

Each year, as part of the Financial State of the States study, Truth in Accounting calculates each state's "taxpayer burden or surplus." The states are then ranked from 1 to 50, with number one having the greatest taxpayer surplus (or lowest taxpayer burden if no surpluses exist) and number 50 having the greatest taxpayer burden.

The migration net ranking is calculated depending on the net state migration rate for a particular state. A scale of (1-50) is used to rank the states such that a state with a low net migration rate (smaller number) is assigned a higher rank (larger number) in the list. For example, in 2017, Illinois had a net state migration rate of -6.3 (which is a loss of 6.3 residents per 1,000 residents in the state) and thus ranked 47th in the net state migration ranking measurement. 

The Tax Foundation annually assesses the 'business-friendliness' of state tax systems. The Index is designed to show the efficiency of the tax structures for each state and is based on weighting five main tax factors:  individual income tax, sales tax, corporate Income tax, property tax, and unemployment insurance tax. A full description of their methodology is available in their report.  According to the Tax Foundation:  “A rank of 1 is best, 50 is worst."