
California does not have the highest poverty rate in the USA - aston
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/california-is-doing-fine-thank-you-very-much/
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bmmayer1
This article boils down to one point: that the basis of the LA Times article's
claim is California's sky-high real estate prices. If it wasn't including
house prices, poor Californians would be doing 'just fine.' That's like saying
a laptop works perfectly fine if you ignore the fact the screen is busted.

Why shouldn't housing prices be looked at when determining how poor a
population is? Obviously it's a significant component of cost of living, which
directly impacts how much purchasing power individuals and families have.

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digitalzombie
That's your interpretation of the article. I don't believe that's how the
article was written.

Author acknowledge the high housing cost but states that the metric that was
used only account for a few things and it ignore other metrics which can skew
it towards a certain argument.

Author also stated that the other person lied about how large state employment
for California is. Author actually normalize/standardize it per capital
instead of a having stating this is a large number.

You and the article can argue whatever yall want but it's just an opinion
until yall do factor analysis or some sort of algorithm to figure out what's
the right combination of metric is.

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tomc1985
As a Californian I don't agree with the sentiment of this analysis. Sure,
certain segments of the population here are doing well -- particularly, the
well-off and those from out-of-state -- but if you were born and raised an
average life here any time in the past 35 years, particularly on the coast,
then your life is particularly tough in some areas: $1500 rents for a 1BR
apartment, super-low wages, apathetic middle class, increasing traffic, now we
have a homeless problem....

More succinctly I disagree with the authors' assertion that CA is doing fine
"if you take out housing prices"

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labster
As a Californian from the coast I feel your pain, but seriously compare this
state to opioid country and we're doing great. Most of the people I knew from
high school have had to leave because they can't afford it here now. But these
are signs of a good economy and low poverty.

We are doing fine if you take out housing prices, and we are doing not great
if you include them. Which is why everyone throughout the state is talking
about the housing crisis. Unless you have some brilliant ideas like draining
the SF Bay[0], housing is hard to do while simultaneously worrying about the
environment.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan)

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AnimalMuppet
> compare this state to opioid country...

That was a bit gratuitous.

> ... and we're doing great.

OK...

> Most of the people I knew from high school have had to leave because they
> can't afford it here now.

So most of the people you went to high school with have been forced to leave
(for "opioid country"?) - why? Because they'd be poor otherwise? Maybe even
homeless? That's a bit odd for a place that's "doing great".

> But these are signs of a good economy...

These are signs of an economy with high cost of living, lots of high-paying
jobs, and not much place in it for those who can't get one of those high-
paying jobs.

> ... and low poverty.

"Most of the poor people leaving" is not normally what I think of when I hear
"low poverty".

I mean, yes, if California weren't creating all these high-paying jobs, there
wouldn't be the demand, and so housing would be affordable. That's all true.
And yet, I think on your own evidence you're painting a happier face on the
situation than it deserves.

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labster
I don't know where everyone has gone, because I'm not an obsessive Facebooker.
But gentrification means the economy is doing well. It sucks if you're the one
displaced. But the jobless rate is very low, and incomes are rising here. Not
everyone can ride this wave, but that's capitalism in America. Yes we create
more people living in cars. If we want to fix that, maybe build more housing
and do UBI?

I understand the impulse to say everything is terrible, because it frequently
is. But that doesn't mean it's not improving. The new challenges created are
not larger than our successes in California.

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curtis
The housing in California is probably most expensive in the Bay Area. On the
other hand, poverty is probably disproportionately concentrated in the Central
Valley, where I expect housing is very cheap compared to the Bay Area. If you
just look at average housing prices and average income levels, I think you may
get a distorted view of the actual cost of living.

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MiscIdeaMaker99
One of the best things I ever learned in school was from my German teacher in
junior high school. I have no idea what we were talking about, but she said,
"You can prove anything with statistics." I'm 41 years old and that has stuck
with me all of these years.

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bmmayer1
Ronald Coase: "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess."

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annon23
Build more houses

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gonewest
Take a look at the recent affordable housing legislation passed in the state
assembly and signed by the governor. Can you guess who opposes these measures?

