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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (758726)	12/19/2013 10:59:08 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Recommended By Brumar89 Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578550

CA produced the most millionaires (at least in the one year your source talks about). It also has the highest population (so it could produce the most millionaires without producing the most per capita), and has a higher cost of living then average (so a million there is less meaningful then a million elsewhere). Another fact about CA. It has the most poor people (again not a surprise since it has the most people, but a point comparable to your point about the most millionaires), but not just that it has the highest poverty rate in the country. ------ California Poverty Rate Highest In Nation Based On New Census Department Figures California has a poverty rate of 23.5 percent, the highest of any state in the country, according to figures released this week by the United States Census Bureau. The only other geographic region with an equivalent poverty rate is the District of Columbia, with 23.2 percent. The second most poverty-stricken state was Florida, at 19.5 percent. The recognition of California's shockingly high poverty rate comes as a part of a shift in the way the Census Bureau measures its data. When the government began examining poverty back in the early 1960s, the line for determining who fell underneath the threshold was determined solely by looking at food costs. In the decades since, there's been increasing criticism this benchmark, as it doesn't take into account tax rates and assistance programs such as food stamps, child care expenses and medical costs. In examining its most recent data, the Census Bureau considered these previously ignored factors, deemed the "supplemental poverty measure." These new metrics have yielded quite different results than in past years. Under the traditional definition of poverty, for example, California's rate is 16.3 percent. "We're seeing a very slow recovery [nationally], with increases in poverty among workers due to more new jobs which are low-wage," University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Timothy Smeeding told the Associated Press. "As a whole, the safety net is holding many people up, while California is struggling more because it's relatively harder there to qualify for food stamps and other benefits." The Golden State's jump between the supplemental and conventional measures was the largest swing of any state, and the Sacramento Bee attributes it to California's high cost of living. "There are several important differences between the official and supplemental poverty measures," explained Census Bureau economist Kathleen Short in a statement. "For instance, the supplemental measure uses new poverty thresholds that represent a dollar amount spent on a basic set of goods adjusted to reflect geographic differences in housing costs. The official poverty thresholds are the same no matter where you live." Under the supplemental measures, the national poverty rate jumped by a full point up to 16.1 percent, or just under 50 million individuals. The poverty rate for minors dropped from 22.3 percent down to 18.1 percent, while the rate for seniors (ages 65 and above) nearly doubled to 15.1 percent. huffingtonpost.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (758726)	12/20/2013 8:48:40 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578550

1/3 of US welfare recipients in California? Wow. California: America’s Welfare Queen Disregard for federal standards has inflated the state’s program. By Nash Keune California is the nation’s welfare queen: The state accounts for one-third of America’s welfare recipients, though it only contains one-eighth of the population, and there’s no good reason for it. Some of California’s welfare problem can be attributed to its particularly severe economic slump (California’s unemployment rate is 2.7 percentage points above the national average). But states in similar situations have significantly smaller caseloads; for example, Nevada, with the nation’s highest unemployment, at 11.7 percent, has a welfare-participation rate about one-quarter of California’s. In California, 3.8 percent of the population receives monthly welfare checks. In no other state is more than 3 percent of the population on the dole. Some may assume that the illegal-immigrant population in California expands its welfare rolls. But in Texas, which also has a large illegal-immigrant population, less than one half of one percent of the population receives welfare. The main reason that California is so dependent on welfare is its uniquely lax enforcement of the provisions of the 1996 welfare reforms. As part of the creation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the federal government put in place a set of regulations on welfare payments to help or encourage recipients to return to work, such as the five-year lifetime limit on benefits. California, however, is one of nine states that don’t unconditionally enforce this supposedly nationwide provision. Even when adults do exhaust their welfare payments in California, under the Safety Net Program, the minors in their families continue to receive checks. Only three other states have similar policies. Unsurprisingly, three-fourths of California’s welfare recipients are 18 years old and younger. A 2009 Public Policy Institute study showed that strengthening the enforcement mechanism by moving from “California’s current grant-reducing sanction to a policy of gradual or immediate grant elimination” for recipients who fail to comply with welfare’s work-participation requirements “would reduce California’s welfare caseload, substantially increase its work participation rate, and slightly reduce poverty among children with single mothers.” The effects of decreasing the time limit itself are harder to predict, but the study indicated that doing so would, at least, not harm welfare recipients to a measurable degree. Efforts to reduce the size of monthly checks in order to cut costs have been, at best, a temporary solution for California. Work-participation rates continued to lag behind the rest of the country. By 2010, only 22 percent of welfare recipients met the minimum federal work requirements. In this case, the cost of the program is a cosmetic concern, concealing persistent structural problems. It wasn’t until his 2007, 2008, and 2009 state budgets that then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed reforms to the most important provisions, regarding overall time limits and sanctions for not meeting requirements. At the end of his term, Schwarzenegger was successful in cutting the time limit to four years and imposing stricter sanctions, effective July 1, 2011. This year, Governor Jerry Brown has proposed to cut the time limit to two years. It remains to be seen whether or not Brown’s plan will pass, or whether it’s enforced even if it does become law. The mere fact that a Democratic governor proposed such reforms shows that his state’s economic reality is finally stark enough that it’s affecting political realities. Brown’s plan will inevitably be called heartless, draconian Social Darwinism, even though the state technically passed a two-year time limit back in 1997 (lack of enforcement rendered it meaningless). If Brown’s proposal passes, the state will still need another round of reforms (such as the elimination of the Safety Net Program) for it to fall in line with the rest of the nation. Reforming a program as thorny as welfare can be difficult, but California need only follow existing federal standards to alleviate its problems. nationalreview.com