In recent months, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has frequently shared lists on social media highlighting the state’s achievements, such as being the “fourth largest economy in the world,” “number one in manufacturing,” and “number one in farming.” These are certainly noteworthy accomplishments.
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.
This week, the California Budget and Policy Center, a think tank located in Sacramento, published a report showing that last year, 7 million residents of California, or 17.7% of its population, lived in poverty.
The think tank’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data reveals that California has the highest poverty rate among U.S. states in 2024, sharing this unenviable position with Louisiana.
When you dive deeper into that seven million number, the magnitude becomes even more staggering:
By accounting for factors like family size and housing costs, the analysis indicates that these 7 million individuals in California did not have adequate resources to cover their basic needs. The population living in poverty is almost as large as the combined populations of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.
Gulp.
California’s poverty rate is one of the highest in the nation, with about 7 million people unable to afford basic needs.
Harmful federal budget cuts risk pushing even more families into hardship.
Poverty is a policy choice.
⚡ We share more: pic.twitter.com/KYIUJKJQan
— California Budget & Policy Center (@CalBudgetCenter) September 12, 2025
That isn’t the only number the far-left governor hopes you’ll never see:
I could go on…
-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
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) August 24, 2025
In 2021, the poverty rate was at a historic low. In response, Newsom and the state’s predominantly one-party legislature opted to significantly increase spending, allocating billions to healthcare for undocumented immigrants, ineffective homelessness solutions, and other expenditures.
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
Simultaneously, the gas tax has risen once more, despite California already having the nation’s highest gas tax and state sales tax. Affordability has become a major issue in California, pushing the dream of home ownership out of reach for many ordinary residents.
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.
