The problem is poverty, not race. The solution is jobs, not handouts

Dan Walters at Cal Matters parses the widely-respected Public Policy Institute of California's recent research about California's socioeconomic fragmentation. And concludes that solving the state's horrific poverty problem ultimately relies on job growth.

By the Census Bureau's measure, California has the nation's highest rate of real-world poverty and by the PPIC's data, more than a third of Californians are living in poverty or near-poverty.

Most recently, the PPIC has charted how the COVID-19 pandemic and the partial economic shutdown ordered to slow infections have had a disproportionately heavy impact on those already stuck on the lower runs of the socioeconomic ladder.

The pandemic has also revealed California's economic vulnerability. Its economy--and its public sector--are inordinately dependent on the high-tech industry centered in the SF Bay Area and we're seeing an erosion of that bedrock sector.

As a recent CNBC documentary points out, California's high operational costs, including taxes, energy,and housing, are driving core businesses such as Oracle and Hewlett-Packard out of the state, often to archrival Texas.

That puts Newsom in an awkward position of advocating massive new spending but openly concerned that raising taxes to finance that spending could accelerate the exodus of taxpayers from California to other, more hospitable states, taking their payrolls with them.

Our compassion for the plight of the poor should not cloud the importance of lowering barriers to job creation that would make their climbs to lasting economic security truly feasible.

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Photo by Gilbert Mercier.