California Has One Of The Nation’s Highest Poverty Rates, Again
Sara Kimberlin, senior policy analyst at the nonprofit California Budget & Policy Center, said the supplemental rate is a more accurate measure because the cost of living is so different from state to state. And in California, she said rents are rising more quickly than earnings. “A really key reason why California’s poverty rate is so high is that we have very high housing costs in many parts of the state,” she said. “And even in areas of the state where housing costs are not as high, many people struggle with high housing cost burden.”
California’s 19% Poverty Rate, Though Improved, Ties State For First in U.S.
“High housing costs are a key driver of why so many are struggling,” said Sara Kimberlin, a senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center, a Sacramento think tank, pointing to a “mismatch between higher housing costs and wages not keeping pace.” Median household rents in California rose by 13.2 percent from 2006 to 2016, while median annual earnings for full-time workers grew by only 4.1 percent over the same period, according to inflation-adjusted numbers in a report by the Budget Center. “Wages for workers in the middle and bottom range have been relatively flat,” Kimberlin added. “We’ve mainly seen increases for those at the higher end.”
California’s Poverty Rate is Still the Highest in the Nation, Despite State Efforts
Scott Graves, director of research with the California Policy & Budget Center, said the tumult over the health law and multiple attempts to repeal it carry most of the blame for the state’s slowing improvement. “We saw this huge cloud of uncertainty descend over the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid last year,” Graves said, adding that the multiple attempts to undermine the law likely discouraged people from signing up. “We’re definitely seeing some of those federal headwinds showing up in the data here in California to the extent that our uninsured rate, which has come down several years in a row — in 2017 it sort of stalled out.”
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