California’s Poverty Crisis

Despite being home to Silicon Valley’s tech giants, Hollywood’s billion-dollar studios and the nation’s most productive farmland, California has become a state suffocated by its affordability crisis. Black and Latino Californians experience poverty rates nearly 10 percentage points higher than their white neighbors. Child poverty more than doubled in just three years, soaring from 7.5% in 2021 to 18.6% in 2024. Nearly 2 million Californians live in deep poverty, defined as household resources less than half of the poverty threshold, or about $20,000 per year for a family of four, even after public assistance. Renters are especially burdened, with more than one in four living below the poverty line.

The culprit is clear: California’s crushing affordability crisis. The state ranks first in unemployment, fuel prices and homelessness. California is second only to Hawaii in housing and electricity costs and is highest in grocery costs among the contiguous states. Rising living expenses are pushing working families to the brink, even as the state boasts the world’s fourth-largest economy.