California’s Income Inequality Now Worse Than Mexico’s, Poverty Level Highest In America

National Economics Editorial ^ | Jan 17, 2017 | Spencer P Morrison

[Thalean]

Californians love sermonizing on the plight of America’s poor and disenfranchised—if only penny-pinching republicans would shell out for a bigger welfare state then all our problems would be solved. Why not build more homes for the homeless, or invest in better education for our kids? The state can solve the problem of poverty, they argue.

And to be fair, they’ve put their money where their mouth is: over the last few decades California has built one of America’s most lavish welfare states. There’s just one problem: it’s not working.

The sad truth of the matter is that California’s poverty rate is the highest in the country, at 20.6 percent. This is based on data from the US Census Bureau, and modified so as to account for differences in the cost of living between states. And if you’re a skeptical “progressive” then don’t worry, even Politifact confirms this finding.

[Thalean]

It's ironic that California: America's "socialist paradise" state, who is always on our case about not caring for the poor etc. is the state with the highest level of inequality.

Governor Moonbeam should start practicing what he preaches, before lecturing the rest of us. Also, socialism clearly isn't working, it's actually made California MORE unequal (which always seems to happen, think Venezuela).

[faithhopecharity]

Socialism in theory has its attractive aspects. Socialism in practice doesn’t - it usually is merely a dictatorship, crudely cloaked in Orwellian egalitarian vocabulary. In short, it mostly doesn’t work well in the real world.

[RGF]

Well, how are you going to alleviate poverty when you keep adding millions of uneducated, illiterate, illegal aliens every year. You just get an unending supply. Someone has to turn off the tap.

[eyeamok]

There’s just one problem: it’s not working.

I strongly disagree,it is working as intended and planned. They have successfully created a State full of dependent voters happily living in poverty.

The poor want and need the benefits, the rich want and need the cheap labor. The Middle class, well someone has to be sacrificed.

[Jim Robinson]

Too many wealthy immigrant-exploiting limousine liberals here.

[nopardons]

Mexico sends most of their lowest of the low here, keeps out the poor people from the nations to their South, so of course California, which has now built a SOCIALIST WELFARE STATE and wide open borders, IS FLOODED with the dregs of society, from all over. And in the run up to today, they have driven out great swaths of those in the middle classes.

[Jim Robinson]

Illegal immigrants = low wage slave labor for wealthy limousine liberals.

[morphing libertarian]

Demographics is a powerful force. In California there has been a Reconquista movement for over 45 years to take back what we won and bought from Mexico. The AG and president of the senate are believers. If you turn Cal and Texas into Mexican enclaves, you’re half way there.

[Sicon]

“Make America Mexico Again!” (MAMA?!)

[Lurkinanloomin]

Mexifornia is the future of America unless we just say NO! to amnesty.

[eyedigress]

Moonbeam should just take everybody’s money over 5 mil and give it to the poor.

That will make for quite the utopia.

[Truth29]

You are correct. California is the desired socialist outcome. The party elite lives well and the dependent masses assure that the socialist Mount Olympus is always maintained. A prosperous, sizable and voting middle class is a danger that must be eliminated in California and other socialist paradises.

[Redbob]

"Well, how are you going to alleviate poverty when you keep adding millions of uneducated, illiterate, illegal aliens every year. You just get an unending supply."

When you reward poverty, stupidity, lack of education, drug use, and general immoral behavior, well... that's what you get more of!

[nopardons]

True, but they aren’t going to win in Texas.

[forgotten man]

There are a few thousand people in California who pay more than 90% of the state income tax. When a thousand or more of them leave California the house of cards will collapse.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

That depends. If you get enough prosperous liberals fleeing their hellholes and flocking to Texas, that could change.

[Paulie]

Not unrelated, I hear the new Governor of NJ is looking to make the Garden State another California.

Lofty goals, eh?

[Rusty0604]

They want the cheap labor, but not all of them want to work.

[sparklite2]

Hey, I wrote a little song about it. Wanta hear it? Here you go.

Maybe Oklahoma's not so bad

Vennnnnnn-zooway-lah, where the gauchos thunder 'cross the plain...
oh, wait, that's Argentina, all those Latin countries look the same.
And those shut-down confiscated Yankee enterprises
can't produce no food to ease a belly's pain.

Ev'ry night my hungry kids and I,
sit alone and talk and watch the po-lice squawk
at the empty markets they pass by.

Caaaali-for-nia, this is where you're headed
and the tipping point was long ago.
You can sit right back and watch the Dems in Sac
spend the money that you owe.

Sooo-cial-ism is just Marxist hooey that keeps
getting buried but won't die, 'cause there'll always be
folks who'll vote to see how much free stuff
they can confiscate as time goes by.

[ought-six]

That’s what happens when you turn your state into a third- world toilet modeled after Mexico.