California’s life costs, poverty refers to its economic division

From And WaltersCalmness

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Four years ago, I wrote a series of 14 articles about the Sacramento Bee, describing major economic, social, cultural and political tendencies passing through California as the 20th century ended.

One topic of the series that later becomes a bookIt was the transformation of California from a high economic and social mobility country into one of the relatively strict classes defined by ethnicity, education, income and wealth.

I quoted two researchers, Leon Buvier and Philip Martin, who predicted the future of California as “the possible emergence of a two -tier economy with Asians and non -Sannators competing for high -status positions, while the Spaniards and blacks struggle to get low -payment jobs.”

Unfortunately, their analysis turned out to be quite accurate.

California has The highest poverty rate of nation As defined by the Census Bureau, when it includes the cost of living in its calculations – 18.9% in 2023 or more than 7 million people.

Additional studies from the California Public Policy Institute have revealed that 31.1% of Californians live in or near poverty in 2023.; More than half this group is Latin American and another 13.6% is black.

In addition, the degree of poverty among undocumented immigrants was 29.6%. And, surprisingly, the Californians without high school diplomas were almost four times more likely than the Californians educated in college.

High levels of poverty emphasize the fact that the costs of Californians for housing, utilities, fuel and other life needs are among the highest in the nation. In some high -cost counties, the California Housing Department considers Adults who earn more than $ 100,000 a year to be poor Regarding the residential assistance qualification.

Being poor in terms of income has another aspect that has not received so much attention – the uniform stratification of Californians from wealth.

There is a logical connection between the two. The low family income and the high costs of living make it difficult to buy a home, contribute to pension accounts, and otherwise acquire what is known as the wealth of generations – assets that can grow and be handed over to heirs.

The California Public Policy Institute has also deepened this aspect of Californians’ personal finances.

“Creating wealth is of particular importance in California, where high costs of life, high levels of poverty and housing shortages exacerbate the challenges of assets,” PPIC researchers Tess Torman and Shannon McConville Write in their new surveyS “But while the Californians strongly feel the barriers to the construction of wealth, many have only a broad sense that experience is shared and relatively few studies have examined this important component of economic well -being in the country.”

While the Californians’ net values ​​(assets minus debt) are generally about 50% higher than those of other states, partly in part of the high values ​​of California housing, low wealth is concentrated in Latin American and black households corresponding to the lower levels of education.

“The degree of ownership of housing and justice is low among Latin American households, led to a large extent by their younger age profile and lower levels of education,” the study found. “In contrast, black/other housing percentages are low, even after taking into account factors such as age levels, income and education.

“While three of four households owe some money for unsecured debts (those without collateral), such as credit cards, student loans and/or medical accounts,” continues the report, “older households are less likely than others to have any unsecured debt, as they are white, asian and immigrant households. Others who are more likely to wear a gang, Asian and immigrant households.

So here, another confirmation that California has indeed become a highly stratified society – perhaps the invariable reality of a country whose political leadership still insists that it is a model for the world.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.