California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been fond of sending out lists on social media in recent months, tallies of where his state stands on a number of issues. The "fourth largest economy in the world," "number one in manufacturing," number one in farming," and so on—all impressive numbers, to be sure.
What he’d like to avoid, however, is the fact that the Golden State is tied with Louisiana for another title: number one in poverty.
A new report released this week by the California Budget and Policy Center, a Sacramento-based think tank, found that 7 million California residents, or 17.7% of the population, lived in poverty last year.
California is tied with Louisiana for the title of highest poverty rate of any U.S. state in 2024, according to the think tank’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
When you dive deeper into that seven million number, the magnitude becomes even more staggering:
The analysis, adjusted for factors such as family size and local housing costs, finds that these 7 million Californians did not have the resources to meet their basic needs. The number of Californians living in poverty is roughly equivalent to the populations of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco combined.
Gulp.
California’s poverty rate is one of the highest in the nation, with about 7 million people unable to afford basic needs.
— California Budget & Policy Center (@CalBudgetCenter) September 12, 2025
Harmful federal budget cuts risk pushing even more families into hardship.
Poverty is a policy choice.
⚡ We share more: https://t.co/ZLoqwQkRwA pic.twitter.com/KYIUJKJQan
That isn't the only number the far-left governor hopes you’ll never see:
I could go on…
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) August 24, 2025
-homelessness (1 out of 50)
-poverty (1 out of 50)
-Retail crime (1 out of 50)
-gas prices (1 out of 50)
-illiteracy (1 out of 50)
-wage stagnation (1 out of 50)
-frivolous lawsuits (1 out of 50)
-unemployment (3 out of 50)
-housing costs (2 out of 50)… pic.twitter.com/Eo7VLTu9Wt
The poverty rate was actually at a historic low in 2021, so what did Newsom and the one-party legislature decide to do? Blow the budget wide open and give away billions for health care for illegal aliens, billions more for completely ineffective homeless policies, and god knows what else.
THIS HAPPENED: CA Gov. Newsom Manages to Turn a Massive Budget Surplus Into a $32 Billion Deficit—in Just One Year
California Punishes Voters After Historic Election, Slaps on Massive New Gas Tax
Meanwhile, the gas tax just went up again, even though in California we already had the highest gas tax in the nation, plus the highest state sales tax. Affordability is a thing of the past in California, and owning a home is beyond even a nice daydream for most normal people at this juncture.
There is a sentence in the tweet from the California Budget & Policy Center at the beginning of this article that reads, “Harmful federal budget cuts risk pushing even more families into hardship.” This will likely be Newsom and the legislature’s defense going forward—"yes, we’re failures, but it’s the federal government’s fault.” They’ll try to blame it on Trump, too, rest assured, but note that the poverty numbers are from 2024, when Joe Biden was president and was throwing federal money around like it was candy.
That dog won’t hunt.
It’s not the federal government’s fault that California has declined so rapidly and disastrously; it’s Gavin Newsom’s, the heavily partisan extremist Democrat legislature’s, and let’s face it, the voters who put them there. There are a few encouraging signs that people in the Golden State are waking up to the calamity that's befallen us, but we’re a long way from turning this place slightly purple, much less red.
In the meantime, voters across the country must make sure that progressive failures like these cretins don’t take national power and turn the entire country into the unaffordable, business-hostile, and dangerous place that they morphed too many parts of this beautiful state into.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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