At a forum in 2017, Assemblyman Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley (San Bernardino County), noted that California has “the highest poverty rate in the nation.” Fact-checkers, progressives and conservatives have joined Mayes in a growing chorus calling attention to the fact that more than 20 percent of Californians lived in poverty from 2014 to 2016 — the highest rate in the nation. Much of this is based on the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, though the Public Policy Institute of California’s poverty measure finds the same thing.

There is much controversy over poverty measures, but even putting those disagreements aside, California still has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. Why?...

Click HERE to read the full SF Chronicle article

Click HERE to read Poverty in the Inland Empire, a regional report by the Blum Initiative that uses the same measure of poverty as the op-ed