New Census Bureau numbers released Tuesday offer some encouraging news under the Trump administration: America’s official poverty rate fell to 10.2% in 2025, while median household income rose to a record $87,460. Good news–poverty down, income up. But another Census measurement reveals more of what we know about California–it costs too much.
Ok, here is the wonky stuff: The Supplemental Poverty Measure looks beyond income to include government benefits, taxes, medical expenses, and differences in housing costs. Nationally, that poverty rate was 13.1% in 2025. California has consistently been among the nation’s worst performers: the most recent three-year Census estimate put California’s supplemental poverty rate at 17.7%, compared with just 12.7% nationally.
Here’s the California paradox–driven in part by policies driven by the Dems in power. Sacramento responds to rising costs with more government programs and state-mandated minimum-wage increases, while Californians simultaneously face the added whammy of rising gasoline taxes and, in many communities, higher sales taxes. And then–you may not really think of it this way, but every time the pols raise the minimum wage–it costs you. Higher mandated labor costs work their way into prices. Taxes make goods and services more expensive. And government subsidies pump more money into markets without necessarily creating more housing, energy, food, or other necessities.
Prices rise, government declares that Californians can’t afford higher prices, and Sacramento responds with another subsidy, benefit, rebate, or wage mandate to help them pay those prices. Raise taxes, raise minimum wages, rinse, repeat.
You’d think the Census numbers would be a wake-up call to supermajority Dems that California can’t spend its way out to affordability. Otherwise, California isn’t breaking the cycle—it’s bankrolling it.
AI aided in compiling this story.
