More dismal CA economic rankings – 48th worst credit card debt, 49th in home ownership, worst poverty rate in U.S.
http://riderrants.blogspot.com/2013/02/more-dismal-california-economic-rankings.html
RIDER COMMENT: Recently Jonathan Horn, the (apparently delusional) director of Jerry Brown’s Office of Business and Economic Development, had the gall to assert the following: “We’ve proven that you can have a successful economy and still preserve the environment and look after workers and protect consumers and look after the public health.”
To be fair, he may not be delusional. He’s not paid to be truthful. He’s paid to provide cover for Jerry Brown and the Sacramento Democrats – to say whatever is necessary to gull the press into believing that California is doing just fine. Indeed, it takes a skilled pathological liar to hold such a position – such talent is not easily found (I presume that such is the case, based on his generous six-figure salary).
You’ve all seen my California fact sheet, so no need to dig into that material here again – but here’s the link:
www.TinyURL.com/CA-vs-other-states
Instead, here’s a few new dismal California facts I picked up from a recent Dan Walters column, dealing with the sad status of California’s families. His column is based on a study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), a D.C. advocacy group for improving the vertical mobility of low income families.
But here’s the salient part I found of (perhaps perverse) interest:
Under the current [poverty ranking] system, which is reflected in the CFED report, the state [California] ranks 29th in poverty rate at 14.6 percent, but under the proposed new [federal ranking] system, which takes into account living costs and other factors, the state would have the nation’s highest poverty rate. [ I covered this new, more accurate poverty standard in a recent blog post:
http://riderrants.blogspot.com/2013/01/california-poverty-rate-now-highest-in.html ]
The detailed section of the report on California cites as major factors in the state’s low economic security ranking its high level of average credit card debt ($13,825; ranked 48th) and its high bankruptcy rate, 6.2 per 1,000 residents, nearly 50 percent higher than the national rate (ranked 45th).
The state also ranks 49th in home ownership and the same level in the percentage of household income devoted to rent or house payments. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau also released a new report on home ownership, confirming that California has one of the nation’s lowest levels of living in owner-occupied homes and revealing that the state’s large population of foreign-born residents are less likely than those in other states to own homes.
Nationwide, the Census report said, 51.5 percent of foreign-born Americans live in owner-occupied homes, but among California’s nearly 4 million foreign-born households, it’s 47.9 percent, the seventh-lowest rate among the states and the District of Columbia.
Not that such facts would be of any interest to the dishonest flunky Horn. But for my readers, this ammo can only be useful.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Blog Posts.
