The cost of living continues to skyrocket, thousands of Californians laid off and Governor Gavin Newsom declared a $22.5 billion deficit for the 2023-2024 fiscal year — this is our California now.
Gone are the days when it led America’s economic front.
California which was once full of breathtaking sceneries, rich natural resources, and entrepreneurial heritage is now on the brink of collapse.
The Newsom administration failed to stop the widening gap between poor and upper-middle-income earners. California has one of the highest Gini ratios, which gauges wealth distribution from the richest to poorest residents. Data shows that the disparity is far higher than in Mexico and Central American countries.
California is now a low-wage economy. According to a survey, over the past decade, 80% of the jobs in the Golden State are paying below minimum wages. In addition to this, most Californians are working in poorly paid personal services or hospitality jobs.
Newsom failed to fulfill his promise to provide affordable housing and address homelessness in California. Even the workers from Google live in mobile home parks, while others sleep in their cars.
The state has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
The weather makes it worse. Californians endure severe flooding brought by atmospheric rivers, devastating farming communities, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crop losses; California’s tax structure isn’t helping either. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, also declared last January that they were laying off 12,000 workers worldwide, and Silicon Valley, a key lending institution to tech start-ups crumbled in March.
Even its entertainment industry plunged. Last February, Walt Disney dismissed 7,000 workers worldwide.
The total number of employment in the information sector in California is down by more than 16,000 from November to February, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Public Policy Institute of California also published a survey revealing that 2 out of 3 respondents expect bad economic times for next year while 62% stated that they feel the state was already in a recession.
Through all these, one thing is constant, Californians cannot attain the state’s housing costs.
The average value for a single-family home in California is about $719,000. Findings revealed by the University of California show that at least 90% of adults who are homeless have experienced homelessness while in California due to the lack of affordable housing.
Around 172,000 individuals are homeless in California, the largest data compared to any state in the US. With this number, 75% became homeless in their county of residence, while 40% were homeless for the first time.
Newsom pledged to address “housing, health care, and homelessness.” He promised an increase of California’s housing supply units by “millions of units, solve the homelessness crisis and create universal health care financed through a single-payer system.”
But these issues remain unsolved and have worsened.
Even the education system in California is failing.
In an assessment, California’s Education Department revealed, “More than half of California students did not meet state English standards and two-thirds did not meet math standards.”
The economically disadvantaged suffered the worst. According to the report, 79% of these students did not meet or exceed state standards in Math.
According to the World Population Review in 2023, California is currently ranked second in illiteracy, trailing behind New Mexico.
Furthermore, the college dropout rate in the State is much higher than the national average. According to a report, 6,612,278 California residents dropped out of college.
“It is no wonder these scores were kept under lock and key,” said Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk.
He furthered, “They are a clear referendum on the failed policies advocated by the governor, legislative leaders, and the state superintendent of public instruction for years – not just during the pandemic. After shuttering schools for the better part of two years, student failure is on steroids.”
That’s what I’ve been saying all along, California is a failed state and needs to be put into receivership by the rest of the country and have its officials removed from office!
Always heard California was going to collapse and fall in the ocean. Looks like Newsome is the readon
Pity those poor, poor California voters. They keep electing/reelecting the same problems and expect better results. Last I heard that is called insanity. Insanity is a mental illness. Keep that in mind. The video neglects to mention that even when housing is available, the homeless who are on the streets because of drugs want to stay close to drug sources and free needles compliments of the state. That is what being addicted is all about.
When criminals know they can steal at will, they will.
When California built homes costing over $600,00 or more, and moved the homeless in, they went back to the streets to be closer the sources of the drugs and the free needles.
Crime is up not only among the homeless, because mayors defund the police and prosecutors keep feather-slapping the criminals. Some forms of crime have decreased, but only because the prosecutors don’t prosecute, thus the records do not reflect the crimes. Apparently there are not enough rocket scientists in California to figure this out.
The mentally ill need shelter and recovery/rehabilitation assistance options. But the politicians clearly prefer a lot of homeless people committing crimes. It gives the “leadership” excuses to demand more money and to raise taxes to get that money. There are no poor or homeless California politicians.
Tax-payer money is clearly being mis-spent. It was not all that long ago that California had a large surplus, but Newsom and the others threw it away. Now the state is in arrears. The voters punish the homeless and themselves by re-electing the likes of Newsom only because they like big hair and adore other politicians that condone crime, homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction.
There are states that do not have nearly the levels of homeless/addict/mental illness/crime as California. Could it be that California “leaders” are using the wrong methods? Are California’s “leaders” ashamed to admit they have wasted millions or billions of tax dollars? Are they afraid to use methods that work just because
of NIH (Not Invented Here)? Why do California politicians like to emulate failure rather than success? Why do the voters keep voting for people who make matters worse?
One thing is clear. Insanity and other forms of mental incompetence are not only prevalent on the streets, they are all-pervasive in Sacramento and in the voting booths of the cities that attract the most problems.
Newsome is not a competent governor and has zero answers.He is another Democrat that is crushing his states economy.