A new report shows California has the highest poverty rate in the US, alongside Louisiana, and rates have shown little improvement.
Despite the abundant wealth in the state – more billionaires live in California than anywhere else in the US – in 2024 about 7 million people, or 17.7% of residents, could not afford to cover their basic needs. In 2021, California’s poverty rate reached a historic low of 11%, but as pandemic-era policies came to an end, rates surged in the state and across the US, according to the report from the California Budget and Policy Center released last week.
I’d say it is (along with my state next door, Oregon) a shining beacon of liberalism. It’s just that liberalism isnt what we were lead to believe it was and with events of late, the mask has finally come off.
Up north, we’ve been getting bills passed like road tolling into all the major population areas (where poor and middle class can’t afford to live but have to drive to in order to get to work) and taking money from rehabilitation and homelessness programs in order to give it to police, while all our politicians go on TV and talk about how concerned they are with the cost of everything 🙄