Californians will tax themselves into poverty. Plus, the COL in coastal Cali makes middle class borderline poverty.
(06-12-2019 05:44 AM)GrayBeard Wrote: [ -> ]Californians will tax themselves into poverty. Plus, the COL in coastal Cali makes middle class borderline poverty.
........and they won't stop until it gets much worse. Those making the crappy choices in their government are the "animals that are more equal than the others"
When your chief import is poor people, foreign and domestic, why does this surprise anyone?
Malibu mansion for me, tent cities for thee.
Taint socialism grrrrreat?!?
(06-12-2019 08:27 AM)JMUDunk Wrote: [ -> ]When your chief import is poor people, foreign and domestic, why does this surprise anyone?
Malibu mansion for me, tent cities for thee.
Taint socialism grrrrreat?!?
And that’s really the deal.
The real problem is real estate development. When Reagan entered the governor's mansion, real estate prices in CA were about the same as the national average.
1) In the 80s, the environmentalists made an alliance with wealthy beachfront owners who wanted to keep the rifraff off their lawns. So they voted in more and more restrictions against real estate development along the coast.
2) This caused real estate values to skyrocket. Not just housing prices. Every retailer, warehouse, hospital, or any other business has to charge more to pay to cover their real estate costs.
Even worse, the time for construction has skyrocketed. So any new project faces years of delays. You want to expand your grocery store or build a modern warehouse? I'm sorry, that will take you 8 years. So you abandon the project.
3) As a result, most retailers and even most wholesalers don't have to worry about new competition. They're effectively monopolies with a captive audience.
4) So cost of living skyrocketed
5) People start leaving for lower cost-of-living areas. Who leaves when costs of living go up?
a)The rich aren't affected, and the poor can't leave. (middle class leaves)
b) People with kids have to pinch more pennies than single people. (families leave)
c) People who approach economic decisions rationally. (conservatives leave - yes, there's a big economic literature which shows that conservatives are more rational about money than liberals)
So middle class conservative families leave. Aka Republicans.
6) With Republicans leaving, more Democrats are voted into office.
7) Democrats enact more restrictions against real estate development.
8) Go back to step 2, and the cycle intensifies.
(06-12-2019 05:44 AM)GrayBeard Wrote: [ -> ]Californians will tax themselves into poverty. Plus, the COL in coastal Cali makes middle class borderline poverty.
pretty sure like $105,000/yr is considered poverty in areas in and around silicon valley.
(06-12-2019 12:55 AM)BEARCATDALE Wrote: [ -> ]Why are so many people poor in the Golden State?
Quote:California—not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia—has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure—which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income—nearly one out of four Californians is poor. Given robust job growth in the state and the prosperity generated by several industries, especially the supercharged tech sector, the question arises as to why California has so many poor people, especially when the state’s per-capita GDP increased roughly twice as much as the U.S. average over the five years ending in 2016 (12.5 percent, compared with 6.27 percent).
Quote:California’s de facto status as a one-party state lies at the heart of its poverty problem. 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.
Its what happens when anti-business "soak the rich" "tax and spend" liberals run a state for too long. The lavish social safety net attracts the sick, lazy, and poor from surrounding states and the anti-business high tax environment drives capital (rich folks--and the heavily taxed middle class) out of California toward more business friendly states.
(06-12-2019 10:05 AM)Niner National Wrote: [ -> ] (06-12-2019 05:44 AM)GrayBeard Wrote: [ -> ]Californians will tax themselves into poverty. Plus, the COL in coastal Cali makes middle class borderline poverty.
pretty sure like $105,000/yr is considered poverty in areas in and around silicon valley.
One person can get by with 105, but a family of four? Might as well look into the local homeless shelters while you’re house-hunting.
My wife has a very strong career (health-care admin.) in metro-Atlanta.
She was offered an executive position in metro-LA that was good,
REALLY good and we both wanted to find a way to make it work. Salary started about $165k. But the combination of sh¡tty public schools, sky-high costs of living, and a commute-from-hell (which would’ve been necessary in order to find affordable housing) forced us to turn it down.