Why California is the 'poverty capital of the America'

American Thinker ^ | 01/15/2018 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

An excellent op-ed in the LA Times today by Kerry Jackson on why California - with its liberal politics and generous welfare system - is the "poverty capital of America."

According to the Census Bureau, one out of five California residents are poor. This despite the state's per capita GDP rising twice as fast in the last 5 years as the national average. From 1992 to 2015, state and local governments spent nearly $1 trillion to help the poor. The state, with 12% of the American population, is home today to about one in three of the nation’s welfare recipients.

Jackson then reaches the not so astonishing conclusion: "The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse."

One of the big reasons for this is the total lack of welfare reform that would require those receiving government assistance to work.

The state and local bureaucracies that implement California’s antipoverty programs, however, resisted pro-work reforms. In fact, California recipients of state aid receive a disproportionately large share of it in no-strings-attached cash disbursements. It’s as though welfare reform passed California by, leaving a dependency trap in place. Immigrants are falling into it: 55% of immigrant families in the state get some kind of means-tested benefits, compared with just 30% of natives.

There is also the "Self-interest in the social-services community":

As economist William A. Niskanen explained back in 1971, public agencies seek to maximize their budgets, through which they acquire increased power, status, comfort and security. To keep growing its budget, and hence its power, a welfare bureaucracy has an incentive to expand its “customer” base. With 883,000 full-time-equivalent state and local

[mulligan]

State is run by morons.

[sphinx]

California is the wealthiest part of Mexico. What’s the problem?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: State is run by morons.

What does this tell us about the majority of voters?

[dfwgator]

S***hole State.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Because they are well on their way down the path that Venezuela started on in the 1990s.

[JudyinCanada]

Well on its way to sh*thole status.

[Da Coyote]

Mexifornia libs are successfully approaching the progressive utopia: Rich folks and the slaves who support them.

[TnTnTn]

What’s the problem .......s***hole state is forming...working as planned by the fn morons that run the state...

[HiTech RedNeck]

And all duly institutionalized. What’s not for a lefty to like, till it gets so topheavy that it falls over.

[SandRat]

OK, all you Holly-Weirds open up your wallet and empty it. Your SSreong-Box to!

[HiTech RedNeck]

The problem isn’t even “nonwhite” races per se. Some people of all of these races know how to do “redneck” well. The problem is how easily they are weaponized by progressives. I won’t weep a lot when these “ethnic tanks” finally come bearing down on the progressives.

[elcid1970]

Any description of Mexifornia should include the word “magnet”.

Think on it.....

;^)

[Thibodeaux]

The poor are poor because the cost of living is excessively high. In california poverty is relative to earning capacity that is excessively high.

The cost of transforming a desert into a thriving region is beyond the regional ability to pay the bill. On top of that taxes based on a percentage of the excessive living costs automatically create poverty.

Having become shitholes, areas in LA and Oakland become magnets for poor because the cost of living is lower.

[Vision Thing]

ca leaders fought valiantly and successfully to legalize public urination and defecation. They are the true golden shower warriors, and they are daCacafornia dreaming, on a summer's day. #shi+hole

[ActresponsiblyinVA]

All illegal immigrants should be encouraged to move to California.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That’s part of the California nightmare. But more economical regions don’t need to be slums either.

[ctdonath2]

“From 1992 to 2015, state and local governments spent nearly $1 trillion to help the poor.”

That’s about $7333/yr each, and does not include federal welfare.
Federal poverty line, for a household of 4, is $6275/yr each. (2x that if alone, decreases on household size.)

[rlmorel]

Thanks for posting it, SeekAndFind...another great American Thinker article, one of the contributing reasons to the income issues many in California have:

"...Counties and local governments have imposed restrictive land-use regulations that drove up the price of land and dwellings," explains analyst Wendell Cox. "Middle-income households have been forced to accept lower standards of living while the less fortunate have been driven into poverty by the high cost of housing..."

Granted, these are their elected officials doing this to them, but it should serve as an object example of why over-regulation and bureaucracy hurts the people it pretends to help.

[caseinpoint]

Another factor to consider is the gerrymandering (er, redistricting) which guarantees safe seats for each party, albeit a lot smaller percentage for Republicans. With that guarantee the parties are free to run extremist politicians that don’t even have to pretend to tack to the middle of the road. once in office, the extemists butt heads constantly with the Democrats winning nearly every time. Then, too, there is the rule that in the final elections, the two highest vote-getters in the primaries appear on the ballot, regardless of party affiliation. Last November the ballot for U.S. senator to replace Barbara Boxer was between a Democrat and a Democrat only.