California has been pricing middle-class families out of the California dream. A new study details just how much worse the situation has become in nine short years.
The study, from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, details how the median household income in California has remained relatively stable while housing prices have spiked. The share of homes sold at affordable prices to middle-income households has dropped across the state, with the biggest fall seen in San Joaquin County. As NBC News notes, the heavily Hispanic county saw that number drop from 91% in 2010 to 58% in 2019.
The cost of entry-level homes has risen steadily over the years. As a result, California has the third-lowest homeownership rate in the country, behind New York and Washington, D.C. Those looking to rent aren’t having much luck either. The share of middle-income renters paying more than 30% of their income on rent has spiked in counties across the state, including in Contra Costa (from under 25% to 45%), Los Angeles (from more than 30% to more than 40%), and Santa Clara (from 15% to just under 35%).
As a result, California has been bleeding middle-income (and low-income) residents going back to 2010. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the exodus of middle-income residents accelerated in recent years. As the PPIC notes, “People who move to California have higher incomes than those who move away.”
California is a progressive playpen, and the result is that lower- and middle-class families are being priced out. The state is run by liberal elites for liberal elites, leaving its less-privileged residents to deal with an increasingly unlivable situation — lack of access to housing, the highest gas prices in the country, homeless encampments near schools and children’s clubs, and a crime problem that is spiraling out of control as repeat criminals are let out on the streets to satisfy liberal notions of criminal justice reform.
California should be the envy of the country given its beautiful climate and wealth. But under single-party Democratic rule, it has become a state for celebrities, tech executives, bureaucrats, extreme poverty, and nothing in between.
Meanwhile, thriving states such as Florida, Texas, Nevada, and Idaho continue to attract California’s middle-class refugee families, who are looking for more affordable alternatives. California is losing the backbone of its economy, but the state’s Democrats aren’t interested in keeping its middle class around.
