California: The Exodus of the Affluent

 Don Lee at LAT: 

In 2021 and 2022, about 750,000 more people left the state than moved in, according to recently released Census Bureau data. That was about as many as the total net loss of residents for all five years before the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

But it’s not just the sheer numbers of people who have left. What’s different is that in each of the prior two years, more than 250,000 Californians with at least a bachelor’s degree moved out, while an average of 175,000 college graduates from other states settled in California, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

In prior periods over the last two decades, that balance was about even or slightly in California’s favor, even though the state consistently lost many more residents overall to other states than it gained from them. The recent out-migration has been particularly pronounced among Californians with graduate and professional degrees.

California is heavily dependent on high earners to meet government fiscal needs. Tax filers in the top 1% of income, earning around $1 million and above, have typically accounted for 40% to 45% of the state’s total personal income tax revenue, said Brian Uhler, deputy legislative analyst at California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which estimated the $68-billion budget deficit.
...

In the tax filing years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000. That was up from $75,000 in 2015 and 2016, according to migration and personal income data from the Internal Revenue Service.

IRS and other data show that Texas has long been, by far, the top destination for Californians. And in the years 2015-16, an individual or couple who had moved from California to Texas reported an average income of $78,000, about the same as Texans who relocated to California. But by 2020-2021, California transplants in Texas reported an average income of about $137,000, while tax returns from former Texans who moved to California showed an average income of $75,000.

The income gap between those coming into California and those going out is even bigger when it comes to Florida, which, as far away as it is, has become a top five destination for emigrating Californians. Statistics show more older Californians are likely to move there. Florida, like Texas and Nevada and Tennessee, another more recent hot spot for Californians, doesn’t have a personal income tax.

In California, the top tax rate for personal income is 12.3%.

NPP and DMV

Registering as an independent or "no party preference" does not necessarily reveal much about voter preferences.  Philip Reese reports at the Sac Bee that a surge in NPP registration was largely an artifact of the process:

In the mid-2010s, California passed a “motor voter” law that automatically registered people getting a driver’s license or ID at the DMV, as well as those changing their address — unless they opted out of registration.

Voter registration boomed, rising by nearly 5 million, or 28%, from January 2016 to October 2023.

At first, a huge proportion of the new voters registered as “no party preference.”

When [Paul] Mitchell explored why, he noticed that the DMVs registration form asked residents if they wanted to pick a political party. If they answered “yes,” it would take them to another page where they would choose their party.

“You had to actively say, ‘I want a party,’” he said.

The problem, Mitchell and others said, is that many people don’t like standing in front of a computer at the DMV. To get away quickly, many chose “no.”

“The default dumped them into this big pit of no party preference voters,” said Wesley Hussey, professor of political science at Sacramento State.

The DMV changed the process in 2019, Mitchell said. Instead of asking voters if they wanted to pick a party and then asking them to pick a particular party on a new screen, the DMV created a dropdown menu that immediately allowed voters to choose a party. “Republican” and “Democrat” were on the dropdown list, along with third parties. Voters also have a nearby option for “no party preference.”

The effects were immediate.

In December 2018, before the change went into effect, about 53% of voters who registered at the DMV signed up as Democrats or Republicans, according to registration data collected by Mitchell. Three months later, after the change went into effect, that figure jumped to 74%. The shift has mostly held. During the first ten months of 2023, about 70% of voters registered as either Democrats or Republicans. A DMV spokesman said that the agency “streamlined the political party selection process” in 2019 based on feedback from the Secretary of State.

Libertarian Rating of States

Many posts have discussed differences among the states, with special emphasis on California and Texas.

William Ruger and Jason Sorens at Cato:

This 2023 edition of Freedom in the 50 States presents a completely revised and updated ranking of the American states on the basis of how their policies protect or infringe on individual liberty.

This edition improves on the methodology for weighting and combining state and local policies to create a comprehensive index. Authors William Ruger and Jason Sorens introduce many new policy variables suggested by readers and changes in the broader policy environment (e.g., universal school choice and state laws that shape local zoning authority).

More than 230 policy variables and their sources are available to the public on this website. New policy variables include a battery of state‐​level land‐​use laws affecting housing, several new occupational licensing measures, a reworked household goods moving company licensing variable that focuses on the “competitor’s veto” element, qualified immunity limitations, and new abortion laws for the alternative indices. In this edition, the authors have updated their findings to

• Provide the most up‐​to‐​date freedom index yet, including scores as of January 1, 2023.
• Retrospectively evaluate how state COVID-19 responses affected freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
• Refresh their analysis of how the policies driving income growth and interstate migration have changed—before and after the Great Recession and during the pandemic.

In addition to providing the latest rankings as of the beginning of 2023, the 2023 edition provides annual data on economic and personal freedoms and their components back to 2000 and for some variables, back to the 1930s.

To read the full report, visit Free​dominthe50S​tates​.org.

See in particular, the writeups for California (#48), Texas (#17), and Florida (#2) 

 

California Update: Losing Population, Flunking Computer Science

Erin Davis at Axios:

New data from the U.S. Census shows that around 820,000 people moved out of California and 550,000 out of New York in 2022. They join more than 8 million Americans who moved states in 2022.

Why it matters: The rising cost of living is pushing people out of expensive coastal areas, and the trend doesn't look likely to change in coming years: four in ten Californians and and three in ten New Yorkers say they're considering moving out of state.

• Many of those moving are headed to Florida or Texas, the states with the largest influxes in 2022.
• But Texans worried about the "California-ing" of their state may not need to worry: Democrats are much more likely to move to blue states, while Republicans move to red states.

Carolyn Jones at CalMatters:

Five years ago, California embarked on an ambitious plan to bring computer science to all K-12 students, bolstering the state economy and opening doors to promising careers — especially for low-income students and students of color.

But a lack of qualified teachers has stalled these efforts, and left California — a global hub for the technological industry — ranked near the bottom of states nationally in the percentage of high schools offering computer science classes.

“I truly believe that California’s future is dependent on preparing students for the tech-driven global economy. You see where the world is going, and it’s urgent that we make this happen,” said Allison Scott, chief executive officer of the Kapor Foundation, an Oakland-based organization that advocates for equity in the technology sector.

Scott was among those at a conference in Oakland this week aimed at expanding computer science education nationally. While some states — such as Arkansas, Maryland and South Carolina — are well on their way to offering computer science to all students, California lags far behind. According to a 2022 report by Code.org, only 40% of California high schools offer computer science classes, well below the national average of 53%.

California’s low-income students, rural students and students of color were significantly less likely to have access to computer science classes, putting them at a disadvantage in the job market, according to a 2021 report by the Kapor Center and Computer Science for California.

 

Fast Food Compromise in CA

Taryn Luna at LAT:

Fast-food companies agreed over the weekend to pull a California referendum off next year’s ballot that sought to reverse a landmark worker-protections law, forgoing a costly political fight with labor unions over employee pay.

The deal will result in an increase in the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour in April and form a new council of representatives for workers and companies to consider pay bumps in the future, according to sources involved in the negotiations.

Negotiated with the help of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s top advisors, the agreement represents a rare compromise that allows business groups and labor to avoid a ballot fight over repealing a law boosting fast-food wages that could have topped $100 million in campaign spending.

“It is a powerful, amazing day,” said Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California. “The new bill really clears a path for workers to have their victory back.”

Sean Kennedy, the National Restaurant Assn.’s executive vice president of public affairs, said the agreement “protects local restaurant owners from significant threats that would have made it difficult to continue to operate in California. It provides a more predictable and stable future for restaurants, workers and consumers.”

Ending Poverty in California?

A number of posts have dealt with homelessness.

The problem is highly visible in California. Because of its high cost of housing, the supplemental poverty measure puts its poverty rate as the highest in the nation.

 At Reason, Steven Greenhut writes about former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, who wants to end poverty in California:

Tubb's group is correct that poverty rates in California are atrocious. "California has the highest rate of poverty at 13.2% of any state in the U.S.," it notes. "28.7 percent of all California residents were poor or near poor in fall 2021." EPIC doesn't address that California's poverty rate is the worst in the nation—especially when cost-of-living factors are included—despite this being the nation's most progressive state. It offers the most generous welfare programs.

One would think that politicians who are serious about ending poverty would at least address that paradox. The video features union organizers who point to the need for an even more powerful union presence in our state, yet unions were on the vanguard of some of the state's most poverty-inducing policies—such as Assembly Bill 5, which tried to ban most forms of independent contracting and destroyed moderate-income jobs throughout the freelance economy.

With their progressive policies, lawmakers are destroying the incentive for developers to build more housing. They're always adding regulations and taxes that shutter businesses and discourage people from investing in new ones. Instead of recognizing that California's poverty problem largely is the result of government meddling, EPIC will propose more-aggressive interventions. At some point, lawmakers need to stop making unattainable high-school-level promises and begin wrestling with complex realities.

Another Newspaper Bites the Dust

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Some national outlets are doing fine, but local newspapers are struggling.

Joshua Molina at Noozhawk:

Following a bankruptcy filing by its parent company Friday, a key executive of the Santa Barbara News-Press has informed staff that the daily newspaper has “stopped publishing,” Noozhawk has learned.

According to an email sent by managing editor Dave Mason: “I have some bad news. Wendy (owner Wendy McCaw) filed for bankruptcy on Friday. All of our jobs are eliminated, and the News-Press has stopped publishing. They ran out of money to pay us. They will issue final paychecks to us when the bankruptcy is approved in court.”

Nick Mathews at The Missourian:

In my research, I explore the de-localization of the news industry, wherein the essence of “local” is stripped away from local news organizations. Through ownership transfers, corporate mergers and -fund takeovers, these organizations too often face consolidation, dismantling and closures. In short, when local ownership is replaced by larger absentee corporations solely driven by financial gains, the vital connection between the news organization and the community is severed. Readers feel detached, amplifying the pervasive nature of the deteriorating local news segment, which continues to experience its worst year every passing year.

Many scholars, including myself, advocate for the merits of local ownership, which prevailed for generations until about the 1980s. A local owner brings invaluable benefits to a community. These owners are attuned to the social and informational needs of the community, understanding the pulse of the community firsthand. They perceive their organizations as vital local institutions, not just commercial enterprises. For the best of local owners, their primary mission is to serve and support their communities, with financial profits taking a backseat to a more noble cause.

 Today, the local news landscape has dramatically shifted, with less than one-third of the nation’s 5,000 weekly newspapers and a mere 10 of the 100 largest circulation daily newspapers maintaining their independence, according to a team of researchers at Northwestern University. The top six largest newspaper corporations in the United States have partial or full ownership by financial firms. This transition away from local ownership not only deprives communities of their stake in newspapers but also places the destiny of surviving publications in the clutches of a limited number of chains. These funds now wield disproportionate power over the local news landscape, shaping its trajectory, essence and even its very existence.

While local newspaper owners in the past prioritized their readers as customers, funds primarily cater to pension funds, mutual funds and commercial banks. funds exhibit no concern for a newspaper’s history, its employees or its ties to the community. Their focus is purely on cold, calculated financial gains. To funds, a newspaper organization is treated like any other asset. If it fails to generate sufficient returns, it becomes subject to downsizing, sale or closure. Cost-cutting tactics are evident from the moment of acquisition, as the firms swiftly slash expenses, reduce newsroom staff and strive to boost their bottom lines.

SHH.. Maybe "Broken Windows" Was Right After All

A number of posts have dealt with homelessness.  California's failure in this respect is noteworthy.

Virginia Postrel points out that homelessness is two problems, not one.  The first is housing availability, which government can remedy by opening the way to more housing.  The second is public order.

A Ninth Circuit court decision equating bans on living on sidewalks and parks with cruel and unusual punishment limits what public authorities can do. (When the court recently affirmed the matter en banc, its conservative judges issued scathing dissents.) Along from the legal restrictions, there is a powerful cultural taboo against considering the public order aspects of homelessness, as opposed to its humanitarian dimension. We’re supposed to choose empathy over order, as though they can’t coexist.

...

[P]olicies to address the housing problem, however worthy, do not make complaints about the public order problem illegitimate. Normal people want to safely use the sidewalks, parks, subways, and bus stops that supposedly exist for everyone’s benefit. Safe camping sites, like the ones San Diego has opened, are a constructive alternative—but they’re paired with restrictions on “unsafe camping” that push people to use them. More could be done to provide similar safe spots, with toilet facilities, for people living in RVs they don’t want to give up in return for inside shelter that might later disappear. (In their situation, I’d make the same decision.)

If you want to build political support for the “mostly stable people who are quietly living in cars,” you can’t do it by pretending you’re addressing the visible problems that scare normal people. The current bait-and-switch breeds resentment, undermines civic institutions, and drives away the productive inhabitants on whom flourishing cities depend.

Homeless in California and Texas

Marisa Kendall at CalMatters:

Texas as a whole last year recorded a 28% drop in homelessness since 2012, while California’s homeless population grew by 43% over the same period. In Texas, 81 people are homeless for every 100,000 residents. In California, the rate is more than five times worse.

And that’s despite the fact that Texas spends far fewer state dollars on homelessness. Last year, not counting federal money, Texas put $19.7 million into its three main homelessness programs – equal to about $806 per unhoused person. California, on the other hand, poured $1.85 billion into its three main programs – or $10,786 for every unhoused person.

How do residents view homelessness in each state? The difference is stark: Homelessness is the No. 1 issue on California voters’ minds, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. In a 2020 poll of Texas residents, it didn’t even crack the top 10.

From the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

The 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count results were released today, showing a 9% rise in homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles County to an estimated 75,518 people and a 10% rise in the City of Los Angeles to an estimated 46,260 people. While this year’s increases are slightly lower than previous year-over-year increases in the homeless count, they continue a steady growth trend of people experiencing homelessness in the annual Point-in-Time Count (PIT Count).

The rise in LA County’s homeless population coincides with increases in major cities across the United States. Chicago and Portland saw double-digit increases (+57% and +20% respectively), while several Southern California counties experienced increases larger than Los Angeles, including San Bernadino (+26%), San Diego (+22%), Kern (+22%), and Riverside (+12%).

While the number of unhoused people in interim housing held steady at 20,363, the rise in the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness coincided with the overall increase in the PIT Count.

Leaving California

 Benjamin Oreskes at LAT:

The findings of a new poll from a consortium of local nonprofits aiming to take stock of the state’s mood point to a contradiction playing out across the Golden State: People are pleased by the bounty the country’s largest state had to offer and mostly favor its liberal attitudes on social issues, but are also far more concerned about their livelihoods than last year.

Nearly half of those surveyed (46%) said they struggle to save money or pay for unexpected expenses even as they scrape by — a jump of 6 percentage points since April 2022 when residents were asked the same question. About 35% said they live comfortably and 18% said they find it difficult to make ends meet every month.

More than 40% of residents say they’re contemplating moving out of California, with nearly half of them saying they’re considering that “very seriously.” About 61% pointed to the high cost of living here as the reason they’d go. People of color are far more likely to say that the expense of living in California is the reason they might leave. About 71% of residents who are either Black or Asian/Pacific Islander and considering relocating cited the cost of living.

Homelessness in California

A number of posts have dealt with homelessness.  

 A release from UC San Francisco:

The University of California, San Francisco BenioffHomelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) today released the largest representative study ofhomelessness in the United States since the mid-1990s, providing a comprehensive look at the causes and consequences of homelessness in California and recommending policy changes to shape programs in response. 

The California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH) used surveys and in-depth interviews to develop a clear portrait of homelessness in California, where 30% of the nation’s homeless population and half of the unsheltered population live.

The study found that, for most of the participants, the cost of housing had simply become unsustainable. Participants reported a median monthly household income of $960 in the six months prior to their homelessness, and most believed that either rental subsidies or one-time financial help would have prevented their homelessness.

...  

The study found that the state’s homeless popula`on is aging, with 47% of all adults aged 50 or older, and that Black and Native Americans are dramatically overrepresented. Contrary to myths of homeless migration, most were Californians: 90% of participants lost their last housing in California and 75% of participants live in the same county as where they were last housed. Nine out of ten spent time unsheltered since they became homeless. The median length of homelessness was 22 months.

One in five participants entered homelessness from an institution. Of those who hadn’t been in an institution, 60% came from situations where they weren’t leaseholders, such as doubling up with family or friends. Participants were disconnected from the job market and services, but almost half were looking for work.

...

 Participants had experienced multiple forms of trauma throughout their life, increasing their vulnerability to homelessness and contributing to their mental health and substance use challenges. Two-thirds reported current mental health symptoms and more than a third experienced physical or sexual violence during this episode of homelessness. More than a third had visited an Emergency Department in the prior six months. One in five who used substances reported that they wanted substance use treatment—but couldn’t get it. 

The Collapse of Local News

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Some national outlets are doing fine, but local newspapers are struggling.

  Jan-Werner Mueller at LAT:

By some estimates, one-third of the newspapers that existed in the U.S. in 2005 will be gone by 2025. Some 70 million Americans already live in “news deserts,” or will soon. In the United Kingdom, 320 local newspapers closed between 2009 and 2019. The private equity firms that have been buying up news organizations tend to make things worse. Rather than investing in journalism, their focus is on ruthlessly reducing the size of newsrooms and selling off newspaper buildings (many of which are in lucrative downtown locations).

 The implications for democracy are beyond debate. Social scientists who study the issue have demonstrated clearly that less local journalism results in higher levels of corruption, undermines political competition and reduces citizen engagement.

From the Society of Professional Journalists:

The Society of Professional Journalists is concerned about the increased number of layoffs to journalists in 2023. This year has seen a record number of media job cuts with the most recent being LAist, run by Southern California Public Radio, and dot.LA, which focuses on tech and startup news. LAist announced Tuesday that it is eliminating 21 positions, 10% of staff, as part of a restructuring due to a revenue shortfall. Dot.LA laid off its entire editorial staff of seven journalists on Monday as it shifts focus to newsletters.

Thursday, SPJ expressed concern over the Los Angeles Times elimination of 74 positions, about 13% of staff. At the time, SPJ Vice President Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins said, “This is yet another sign of a disturbing trend across our industry. When newsroom management makes these kinds of cuts, the public becomes less informed, which puts our very Democracy at risk.” A new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, found at least 17,436 jobs have been cut as of May 31, a 315% increase from this time last year. This is the highest amount of job cuts on record, including surpassing cuts made during the beginning of the pandemic.

New York and California are Losing Affluent Taxpayers

 Justin Fox at Bloomberg:

New York has been losing people to other states for a while. But something new happened during the pandemioc: The people who left had higher incomes than those who stayed behind — much higher.

The 2020-21 numbers here were released in late April by the Internal Revenue Service. They sort taxpayers by whether and where they moved between filing their taxes in 2020 and filing them in 2021; the adjusted gross incomes are for the 2020 tax year. It has been two years since May 17, 2021 — that year’s belated income tax filing deadline — and a lot has changed. But New York has continued to lose population, and if the trend depicted above were to continue, even in less extreme form, it would be disastrous for the finances of a state that relies on income taxes paid by those making $200,000 or more a year for almost half its revenue. (That is, before the pandemic in 2019, personal income taxes accounted for 65% of state revenue, and those making $200,000 or more paid 71% of the income taxes.)

...

The role of taxes in driving interstate migration is often exaggerated, but it’s not nothing. In a couple of recent papers, Joshua Rauh of the Stanford Graduate School of Business has shown that the percentage of very-high-income taxpayers leaving California jumped in the wake of one, a 2013 increase in the state’s top income tax rate, two, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Job Act’s curtailing of state and local tax deductions and three, the pandemic. Still, that’s not many people and for years those leaving California and New York have been mainly lower— and middle-income residents for whom expensive housing and other cost-of-living issues probably played a bigger role than tax rates per se.

In New York, the initial pandemic exodus was led by those who could afford to leave quickly and could work remotely. The composition seems to have shifted since then, with affluent Manhattan gaining population from mid-2021 to mid-2022, according to Census Bureau estimates, and the state’s poorest county, the Bronx, losing the biggest percentage of population. (The recent New York Times analysis showing an accelerating exodus of college graduates from the New York City metro area relies on different Census numbers that aren’t available yet for 2022.) New York has been finding all sorts of different ways to drive away all sorts of different people — and it looks as if that’s about to start seriously hampering the state’s ability to pay its bills.

Prop 13 and Education in California

 From The Orange County Register

The U.S. Department of Education publishes data on per-pupil spending in public elementary and secondary schools by state and by year, comparing the annual spending in constant 2021-22 dollars. The data can be found online in the National Center for Education Statistics’ Digest of Education Statistics, in table 236.70.

In the 1969-70 school year, California’s per-pupil spending was $6,474. (That’s the inflation-adjusted number. The nominal dollar amount at the time was $867.)

Proposition 13 was adopted in 1978. In the 1979-80 school year, per-pupil spending in California went up to $8,238. It rose to $9,752 in 1989-90, to $10,663 in 1999-2000, and to $12,596 in 2009-10.In 2019-20, the most recent year for which statistics are available on the U.S. government site, per-pupil spending in California was $15,860.

The state’s Department of Finance projects per-pupil spending will be $17,444 for the nearly 5.9 million students enrolled in grades K-12 in California’s public schools in 2023-24.

According to the May revision of the governor’s budget, the state will spend a total of $127.2 billion on K-12 education.

Anyone who believes California would be better off if only we could go back to the school funding level before Proposition 13 should consider this: If per-pupil spending was restored to the pre-Proposition 13 level in 1969-70, the state’s total spending on K-12 education for 2023-24 would be approximately $38.2 billion.

That’s $89 billion less than we’re paying now.

Maybe the Legislature should focus on where the money is going.

The California Effect and Red State Pushback

At NYT, Conor Dougherty reports that California Assembly Member Buffy Wicks (D) declined to run for the House because she could accomplish more as a state legislator.

Consider, she said, an internet-privacy bill she drafted last year, called the Age-Appropriate Design Code. It requires websites to ratchet up their default privacy settings to protect children from online tracking and data collection. The bill was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom over the opposition of the tech industry, which argued that it was too complicated to implement and tantamount to a state law setting national policy. That, in fact, was the point: Wicks passed the law with help from a member of Britain’s House of Lords, who had created similar regulations in her country, in the hope that if Britain and California passed the same rules, a global standard was likely to follow.

California has been so successful at bending national policy in its direction that academics have taken to calling the phenomenon the California effect. From labor and consumer protections to corporate governance, energy and animal-welfare measures, California’s laws are the most widely copied in the nation. Most corporations can’t afford to ignore its mammoth market (its $3.6 trillion economy is the world’s fifth-largest, exceeding India’s); they often end up adopting California’s rules across the country because doing so is cheaper than trying to craft two separate sets of products and policies.

For decades, California has been able to fund a sprawling administration whose agencies have federal-size budgets and wide latitude to set and enforce rules. But as the nation has fractured along cultural and economic lines, Republican governors, like Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, have sought to experiment with legislative activism of their own — a kind of anti-California effect. Recently, a number of red states have tried to create conservative guidelines for textbooks, explored ways of preventing companies from paying for employees’ abortions, tried to stop (or at least slow) the move away from fossil fuels and sought to limit Medicaid patients’ access to gender-transition care.

California Shrinking

From the California Department of Finance:

Stable births, fewer deaths, and a rebound in foreign immigration slowed California’s recent population decline in 2022, with the state’s population estimated at 38,940,231 people as of January 1, 2023, according to new data released today by the California Department of Finance.

Over the same period, statewide housing growth increased to 0.85 percent – its highest level since 2008. California added 123,350 housing units on net, including 20,683 accessory dwelling units (ADUs), to bring total housing in the state to 14,707,698 units. New construction represents 116,683 housing units with 63,423 single family housing units, 51,787 multi-family housing units, and 1,473 mobile homes.

The 0.35-percent population decline for 2022, roughly 138,400 persons, marks a slowdown compared to the recent decline during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Between 2021 and 2022, California’s population decreased 0.53 percent or 207,800 persons, due mainly to sharp declines in natural increase and foreign immigration.

For 2022, natural increase – the net amount of births minus deaths -- increased from 87,400 in 2021 to 106,900 in 2022. Births decreased slightly from 420,800 in 2021 to 418,800 in 2022, while deaths declined gradually from 333,300 persons in 2021 to 311,900 persons in 2022, respectively.

Foreign immigration nearly tripled in 2022 compared to the prior year, with a net gain of 90,300 persons in 2022 compared to 31,300 in 2021. While foreign immigration to California has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, natural increase has not rebounded. Total births remain low due to fertility declines; while deaths have eased gradually from their pandemic peak, they remain elevated.

With slower domestic in-migration and increased domestic out-migration likely the result of workfrom-home changes, declines in net domestic migration offset the population gains from natural increase and international migration.. 

Danger in Shasta County

Many posts have discussed the problems and dangers facing journalists.

 Dani Anguiano at The Guardian:

In a seemingly long gone era – before the Trump presidency, and Covid, and the 2020 election – Doni Chamberlain would get the occasional call from a displeased reader who had taken issue with one of her columns. They would sometimes call her stupid and use profanities. Today, when people don’t like her pieces, Chamberlain said, they tell her she’s a communist who doesn’t deserve to live. One local conservative radio host said she should be hanged. Chamberlain, 66, has worked as a journalist in Shasta county, California, for nearly 30 years. Never before in this far northern California outpost has she witnessed such open hostility towards the press. She has learned to take precautions. No meeting sources in public. She livestreams rowdy events where the crowd is less than friendly and doesn’t walk to her car without scanning the street. Sometimes, restraining orders can be necessary tools.

 These practices have become crucial in the last three years, she said, as she’s documented the county’s shift to the far right and the rise of an ultraconservative coalition into the area’s highest office. Shasta, Chamberlain said, is in the midst of a “perfect storm” as different hard-right factions have joined together to form a powerful political force with outside funding and publicity from fringe figures. The new majority, backed by militia members, anti-vaxxers, election deniers and residents who have long felt forgotten by governments in Sacramento and Washington, has fired the county health officer and done away with the region’s voting system. Politically moderate public officials have faced bullying, intimidation and threats of violence. County meetings have turned into hours-long shouting matches. Chamberlain and her team at A News Cafe, the news site she runs, have covered it all. Her writing has made her a public enemy of the conservative crowd intent on remaking the county. Far-right leaders have confronted her at rallies and public meetings, mocking and berating her. At a militia-organized protest in 2021, the crowd screamed insults.

California Is Losing Affluent Residents

Many posts have discussed California's many problems.

Hans Johnson and Eric McGhee at PPIC:

During the height of the pandemic, the flows out of the state became so large that almost every demographic and socioeconomic group has experienced net losses. For example, California used to gain college graduates even as it lost less educated adults. But in the last couple of years, the state has started losing college graduates as well, quite markedly—albeit still not to the same extent as less educated adults. Even among young college graduates in their 20s, a group that California has disproportionately attracted in the past, the flows out of the state have been about the same as the flows into the state.

Perhaps most striking, California is now losing higher-income households as well as middle- and lower-income households. During the pandemic, the number of higher-income households moving to California declined a bit, but the number leaving the state increased dramatically (from less than 150,000 in 2019 to almost 220,000 by 2021).

The losses of college graduates and higher-income households are likely related to the ability of many highly educated and highly paid workers to work from home. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse surveys show that about two-thirds of the almost three million Californians who telework full-time (five or more days per week) have at least a bachelor’s degree. Among recent higher-income Californians leaving the state, over half (53%) report working from home.

Salinas Newspaper Has No Reporters

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Some national outlets are doing fine, but local newspapers are struggling.

 James Rainey at LAT:

When brown water overflowed the banks of the Salinas River in January, flooding thousands of acres and throwing an untold number of farmworkers out of jobs, the leading newspaper in this agricultural mecca did not cover the story.

Candidates in the November race for mayor also went absent from the pages of the 152-year-old news outlet. Ditto non-coverage of a police staffing shortage so serious that the police chief said the department might not have enough cops to respond to all complaints of theft, fraud, vandalism, prowling and prostitution.

The Salinas Californian missed those stories, understandably, because it employed only one journalist until December. That’s when the paper’s last reporter quit to take a job in TV. The departure marked the latest and perhaps final step in a slow-motion unwinding of what used to be the principal local news source in this city of 163,000.

Owned by the largest newspaper publisher in the nation, Gannett, the venerable Californian now carries stories from the chain’s USA Today flagship and its other California papers. The only original content from Salinas comes in the form of paid obituaries, making death virtually the only sign of life at an institution once considered a must-read by many Salinans.

Crime Pushes SF Asian American Voters to the Center

 

Asian Americans to Democrats: "we want safe streets, good schools and less progressive ideology." That's the message and 2024 warning from San Francisco. Footnote about our unfortunate experience at the end. @OutFrontCNN story features @JoelEngardio. Producer: @jasonkCNN pic.twitter.com/6Up96sGD5H

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) March 23, 2023