THE PARAGRAPHS OF THE DAY

Today’s paragraphs come to us from Spencer P. Morrison, writing for nationaleconomicseditorial.com.

Mr. Morrison talks about what amounts to two Californias:  the one media like to tell us about when extolling its “progressive” (read that as hard left) social policies, and the one media would like us not to notice.

Says Mr. Morrison:

According to the US Census Bureau’s Official Poverty Measure, California’s poverty rate hovers around 15 percent.

But that doesn’t tell the full story.  The Census Bureau measures poverty in reference to a uniform national standard, which doesn’t account for differences in living costs between states, ie. the cost of taxes, housing, and medical costs can differ greatly depending upon where you are.

The Public Policy Institute of California found that, when accounting for these differences, California’s true poverty rate is 20.6 percent—the highest in America.  In fact, it’s nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.

This is sad, especially when one considers the great wealth that California has to offer—California is the home of America’s biggest technology firms like Apple and Google, and it’s the world’s entertainment capital.  There’s big money there, but also big poverty.

This is why income inequality in California is so high.  In fact, if California were an independent nation, it would be the 17th most unequal place on earth—more unequal than Mexico, Guatemala, and Russia.

At the beginning of this blog I noted that this shows there are two Californias.

Mr. Morrison wins Paragraphs Of The Day honors for making the dichotemy so clear that even a CNN analyst might – might – notice it.