- You may be over
the Kim and Kanye divorce drama
but there's a reason you should be
keeping up with their real estate purchases.
- [Reporter] Are you gonna be moving to Wyoming, Kim?
- Especially that 4,500- acre ranch they own
in the middle of Wyoming.
The area was home to native tribes
like the Cheyenne, Crow, Arapahoe, Shoshone, and Ute
before white colonists dubbed it, the Cowboy State.
Now in the year 2021,
it's being overrun by a whole new brand of settlers.
Celebrities.
- Jackson Hole's always been a place for the wealthy
to flock to and have second homes.
It's just gotten even crazier recently.
- The influx of the ultra rich
is causing housing prices to skyrocket.
- It's really putting a squeeze on,
on middle class and the working poor.
- So has the Wild West,
as in the land, not Kanye,
become too expensive for normal people?
I'm Yoonj Kim, and this is the Pop Factor.
(harmonica music playing)
The rich and famous love Wyoming.
In fact,
it's got the highest number of billionaires
per capita in the entire country.
Megastars like Harrison Ford, Sandra Bullock, Jeffree Star,
and RuPaul are snatching up real estate across Wyoming,
a state known for mud, manure, and manual labor.
I first became interested
in Wyoming's beautiful hiking trails and rustic lifestyle
when I visited back in 2018.
It seemed down to earth.
So when Kim Kardashian bragged about
the 14 expensive horses they keep at their Wyoming ranch
during the middle of the pandemic,
I was shook. And so was Twitter.
I started to wonder why so many glamorous Hollywood folks
are buying homes in a place so far off the beaten path.
As with most things, I just had to follow the money.
- Folks from California, New York,
these high-tax environments, find Wyoming
to be quite lucrative
because they don't charge an income tax.
- Justin Farrell is a born-and-raised Wyomingite
and Yale sociology professor who has studied the effects
of the ultra wealthy on the state.
- The fact that, you know, if you have, you know,
$100 million and you don't have to pay income tax,
that can save you so much money.
- Word of Wyoming's tax-haven status
reached upper-class circles
and it didn't take long for them to make themselves at home
in nature.
- A billionaire or a celebrity could be sitting
in the coffee shop next to you.
You may not even recognize them
because the way that they're dressed.
- Josh Flagg is a reality TV star
and luxury real estate agent in California
who's plugged into the scene.
- I don't sell houses that I sell here
but when my clients tell me they're
moving there
I don't have to ask why, I know.
- Taxes - To save money.
- Yeah.
Apparently there's very favorable tax laws in Wyoming
which I should probably learn more about myself
but I don't ever wanna leave Los Angeles.
- With Jackson Hole and Wyoming, in general
when would you say this trend started,
of people from L.A. and celebrities starting to move there?
- Jackson Hole has always been a place for the wealthy
to flock to and have second homes and whatnot.
It's just gotten even crazier recently.
- Right, and the fact that they don't have an income tax,
is that, like, well-known when you sell to celebrity clients
or when you talk to your friends about it?
- Well, it is now. (laughs)
- Jackson Hole is Wyoming's celebrity hotspot
located in Teton County,
which has the highest-per- capita income in America
and where the median price of a home is over
$2.5 million.
It also has the worst income inequality in the country.
So the fact that residents don't pay an income tax
like the rest of the country seems odd.
Why doesn't Wyoming have an income tax?
- Well, they've relied so heavily on,
on the fossil fuel industry and energy production.
Most people don't know that,
that it's one of the biggest energy-producing states
for the rest of the U.S. in terms of coal, oil, and gas.
And so they just haven't had
to bring in income from other sources.
- Wyoming is a fossil fuel state
that produces 40 percent of the country's coal.
But as Americans seek more sustainable forms of energy,
fossil fuel revenues have dipped.
Couple that with the state's refusal
to collect taxes from its wealthy residents
and it's a recipe for disaster.
- As a state,
it's so culturally and politically anti-tax.
And so they just despise taxes no matter what
even if it harms the state and its people.
- Right, so it sounds like
it's a lot of Republicans running the state.
- Yeah, it's gotten much more conservative.
The odd thing is that places like Jackson Hole
are the most liberal
and the only liberal pocket of the state.
They're still not willing to tax that population.
It's really putting a squeeze on,
on middle class and the working poor.
- Meanwhile,
lawmakers are proposing drastic cuts to state services
like public education and housing,
which is a big problem
since, despite its glitzy image,
not everyone in town is a millionaire.
- I lived in my Subaru for five years,
and then I leveled up and got a van.
- Like Clare, a local housing activist who moved
to Jackson Hole a few years ago for work.
She fell in love with its stunning natural beauty,
but she soon realized there was a lack
of affordable housing.
- For a studio, you're looking at $1,800-plus
and those are on the lower end of the spectrum.
- Clare's personal struggle
with housing inspired her
to get involved with Shelter JH,
a nonprofit dedicated
to addressing the housing crisis in Jackson Hole.
- What we're trying to do at Shelter is build a movement.
And there are resources here that,
that build housing and provide housing.
And we're attacking the problem at its root.
And we see that as policy.
We're the only housing organization,
housing advocacy organization, in the valley,
which is shocking to me,
considering the amount of disparity
that exists here in the housing sector.
- Would you say one of the solutions is
to ask celebrities to stop coming to Jackson Hole,
to stop buying property there?
- That's hard because a lot the people make their living
off of tourists coming here.
And there are a lot of people who make their living
off of building these enormous 10,000-square-foot
mansions.
- What's your solution then?
How do we approach this?
- I think where the chance for change lies
is just balancing those priorities more delicately.
- I'm not one to say, you know,
that everyone needs to pack up and leave.
But if you look at, you know, some solutions,
it starts with taxes and just having a tax in general
like most states have. It could, you know,
raise hundreds of millions of dollars
to fund basic health services, basic education,
instead of slashing it to the bone.
It's not a really complex economic problem.
It's more an ideological problem
and really a moral problem
about what do we want our communities to look like?
Everybody needs to work together to solve these problems.
- Cool. So the dream isn't totally dead yet.
- It's not dead.
- There's perhaps no dream more American
than wanting a home of your own.
Whether it's a little house on the prairie
or a condo in the city,
affordable housing should be accessible
to everyone regardless of how rich or famous they are.
And if that involves the privileged
paying their fair share,
is that really so much to ask?
I'm Yoonj Kim, and that's the Pop Factor.