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Things kinda suck in California

Liquid Karma

Liquid Karma

Eat a dick, hackers!
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http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article2916749.html

California continues to have – by far – the nation’s highest level of poverty under an alternative method devised by the Census Bureau that takes into account both broader measures of income and the cost of living.

Nearly a quarter of the state’s 38 million residents (8.9 million) live in poverty, a new Census Bureau report says, a level virtually unchanged since the agency first began reporting on the method’s effects.

Under the traditional method of gauging poverty, adopted a half-century ago, California’s rate is 16 percent (6.1 million residents), somewhat above the national rate of 14.9 percent but by no means the highest. That dubious honor goes to New Mexico at 21.5 percent.

But under the alternative method, California rises to the top at 23.4 percent while New Mexico drops to 16 percent and other states decline to as low as 8.7 percent in Iowa.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article2916749.html#storylink=cpy
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Deacon923 said:
and they don't have any water to drink.
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Plus this.

I'm out here in Santa Barbara for business right now, and so far the water restrictions don't appear to be too harsh. You can water your plants/yard twice a week for 15 minutes each time. Restaurants are not serving water by default - you have to ask for it. Waiters aren't rushing to refill glasses.
 
Things I blame (in no order):

Obama
Millennials
 
TownieDeac said:
Things I blame (in no order):

Obama
Millennials
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I'm not really laying blame anywhere. It's not like the cost of living being high out here happened overnight. I find it interesting that the poverty line is being adjusted to account for cost of living. I think that's a better measure than applying the same income cutoff across all locations.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I'm not really laying blame anywhere. It's not like the cost of living being high out here happened overnight. I find it interesting that the poverty line is being adjusted to account for cost of living. I think that's a better measure than applying the same income cutoff across all locations.
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Not enough suburbs.
 
[ rj ] Maybe we wouldn't be in poverty if we didn't have to supprot all of you mooching Southern states [/ rj ]
 
I%2Bjust%2Bcame%2Bby%2Bto%2Bsee.jpg
 
here's a link to the actual underlying census bureau report. http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-251.pdf?eml=gd&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

The definition of "poverty threshold" under this revised test is:

The mean of the 30th to 36th percentile of expenditures on
food, clothing, shelter, and utilities (FCSU) of consumer units
with exactly two children multiplied by 1.2

If I read this correctly, it says that you are below the poverty level when your income (which includes gov't benefits in this test) is less than what the 33rd percentile (roughly) of consumers spends on food, clothing, shelter, and utilities, times 1.2; adjusted for housing costs and family size and composition.

Does anyone else feel that this way of measuring is (a) somewhat arbitrary - why is it the 30-36th percentile and not the 15th or 40th? and (b) a target that is going to be impacted significantly by what non-poor people are spending? So, under this measure, no matter how objectively well off you are, if 75% of the population spends more than you make on food, clothing, shelter, and utilities, you're poor. Maybe it doesn't speak to how objectively well off the 35%er is, but is more about how consumerist a society he lives in?

Just spitballing on a Friday afternoon.
 
There are no poor people in Huntington Beach.
 
There are poor people in HB and a lot of poor people in towns next door like Westminster, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa.
 
Obama
Weed
RJ
Mexican'ts

In that order.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I find it interesting that the poverty line is being adjusted to account for cost of living. I think that's a better measure than applying the same income cutoff across all locations.
Click to expand...

It seems really obvious doesn't it?
 
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