Illinois had one of the largest population busts in the nation this year according to new data published Dec. 19 from the US Census Bureau. Illinois is the sixth-largest state, with a population estimated at 12,741,080. Since 2013, the state had seen more than 100,000 residents leave, when the population was 12.9 million. 

"Illinois suffered the second-largest numeric loss (45,116) of any state, following only New York, which was down 48,510 residents but has a much larger overall population of more than 19.5 million," said the Chicago Tribune.

The population bust was also evident in other "high tax" states such as West Virginia, Louisiana, Hawaii, Mississippi, Alaska, Connecticut, and Wyoming. No other states in the Midwest had declines like Illinois.

"I think in a way Illinois is kind of standing out in the Midwest," William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., a not-for-profit public policy organization, told the Chicago Tribune.