Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?

[Valin]

LA Times

Demonstrators and homeless advocates rally in solidarity with those experiencing homelessness and Disneyland workers struggling with poverty wages outside the theme park in Anaheim, Calif. on July 14. (Los Angeles Times)

Kerry Jackson

Jan. 14 2018

Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That’s according to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income.

Given robust job growth and the prosperity generated by several industries, it’s worth asking why California has fallen behind, especially when the state’s per-capita GDP increased approximately twice as much as the U.S. average over the five years ending in 2016 (12.5%, compared with 6.27%).

It’s not as though California policymakers have neglected to wage war on poverty. Sacramento and local governments have spent massive amounts in the cause. Several state and municipal benefit programs overlap with one another; in some cases, individuals with incomes 200% above the poverty line receive benefits. California state and local governments spent nearly $958 billion from 1992 through 2015 on public welfare programs, including cash-assistance payments, vendor payments and “other public welfare,” according to the Census Bureau. California, with 12% of the American population, is home today to about one in three of the nation’s welfare recipients.

The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse.

 

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With a permanent majority in the state Senate and the Assembly, a prolonged dominance in the executive branch and a weak opposition, California Democrats have long been free to indulge blue-state ideology while paying little or no political price. The state’s poverty problem is unlikely to improve while policymakers remain unwilling to unleash the engines of economic prosperity that drove California to its golden years.

[Valin]

Promoted Comments

 

#1  pointofusesolutions

1,096 points

hey! since you are using it so often, you may as well know the name of one of the fallacies (that means failure of critical thinking) you base all your deductions on - "correlation is not causation." you are embarrassing yourself, not to mention proving that your arguments have no basis in either fact nor in reasonable

 #2  affableman

986 points

I know this is a bit long but at least it's something different than bitching at each other some more as that's really old…

#3  ChristianEcon

581 points

Rightwing hack hitpieces represent intellectual poverty. What about health care? Should that be an indicator of "poverty"? Cali is 4th in the nation in life expectancy, and as would be expected, red states form the bottom of that list. Cali's GDP also financially supports that of red states, which is another indicator of who’s impoverished…

 

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McCourtMustGo

22 hour(s) ago

I am a Dreamer. I have lived in California my entire life, born here. I dream of a California that had legal immigration, not unfettered open borders. I dream of a California where public education was quality, diplomas were earned, meant something worthwhile and not handed out as statistics to keep public money flowing. I dream where prisoners stayed in prison, not released because of foolish crime classification weakening. I dream of functining infrastructures; affordale housing; public parks with no admission fees. Where community colleges were actual college level studies. Where streets were not filled with homeless. Where San Francisco was not filled with human waste and crime and where there was civic pride - not just sexual orientation "pride". I dream of a California where the middle class built the state and manufacturing actually built huge plants here. Where highways were good, where taxes were not confiscatory. Where the energy sector were not considered evil. Where rational laws addressed public problems. Where great and useful public projects were built - on budget. I am Dreamer, not of a perfect state, no where is utopia, but of a real state, not one to be used as huge petri dish for a failed political ideology. I am a Dreamer.

[Valin]

It's A Mystery!

[Valin]

New California declares "independence" from rest of state

Jan 16, 2018

SACRAMENTO — With the reading of their own version of a Declaration of Independence, founders of the state of New California took the first steps to what they hope will eventually lead to statehood. CBS Sacramento reports they don't want to leave the United States, just California.

"Well, it's been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we're rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California," said founder Robert Paul Preston.

The state of New California would incorporate most of the state's rural counties, leaving the urban coastal counties to the current state of California.

"There's something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed," Preston said.

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Well We'll See

 

H/T Ed Morrissey

 

[Draggingtree]

 

[Valin]

58 minutes ago, Draggingtree said:

 

Obviously Ca. Needs a Bike Tax To solve this problem!

[Valin]

 

[Valin]

Voters Gave L.A. Lawmakers Billions Of Dollars To Solve The Homeless Crisis. So Why Are Tens Of Thousands Of People Still Sleeping On The Streets?

Jared Sichel

January 18, 2018

Just before 5 a.m. on Wednesday, December 6, flames raced up the hills adjacent to Los Angeles’ 405 freeway, shutting down one of the nation’s largest traffic arteries, destroying and damaging 18 homes, and scorching 422 acres.

Americans were awed by the fire-and-brimstone videos that morning commuters posted on social media. Angelenos were stunned by the smoke clouds pouring into the skies above their city.

Six days later, the Los Angeles Fire Department announced that the blaze was sparked by an illegal cooking fire at a homeless encampment next to the 405, in the ritzy neighborhood of Bel-Air.

The revelation brought increased attention to what city and county officials acknowledge is a homelessness crisis, and what Mayor Eric Garcetti called the “moral issue of our time” in his April 2017 State of the City address.

The figures are grim: According to the official Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, done every January by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), in 2017, on any given night, there were 57,794 people experiencing homelessness, 42,828 of whom, 74%, were unsheltered.

 

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What I find interesting is a small simple question....What happened to the Billions of dollars?

[Valin]

 

Evidently some in  Ca.want California to succeed from union

 

[Valin]

 

 

[Valin]

 

[Valin]

Camping out in Minneapolis

Scott Johnson

Dec. 4 2018

Heading downtown Minneapolis several times a week, we watched a so-called homeless encampment grow on a small strip of land along Hiawatha Avenue just before it funnels traffic downtown onto Seventh Street. A tribute to the broken-windows theory of policing, the encampment grew up virtually overnight. Bordering a subsidized Native American housing complex, residents of the encampment reflect the Indian tilt of their neighbors. At one point we saw teepees join the tents.

As the encampment turned into a shithole, municipal authorities jumped to it. They moved four port-o-potties onto a fringe of the strip. That didn’t do anything to clean up the detritus of addiction that littered the grounds. Between September and November four residents of the encampment died of overdoses. The Star Tribune quoted the father of one of the deceased: “It’s a drug house without walls and everyone knows it.” Yet the encampment continued to grow, spilling over the small strip of land on which it originated. It was something like an attractive nuisance.

Long after the encampment had become a disgusting eyesore and menace to public health, the authorities came up with a creative solution of a sort. They installed a green mesh screen to render the encampment less visible to passing traffic.

As the weather has turned toward winter, the encampment has become a fire hazard.....................(Snip)

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