Join us at the CalMatters Ideas Festival on May 21. 💡 Get your tickets now.

Fast food workers from across California rallied at the state Capitol in Sacramento, urging lawmakers to pass AB 257. Aug. 16, 2022, Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters

California Divide

Covering income inequality across the state

About

California’s gap between rich and poor is among the largest in the country, and it is widening. We explore how income inequality is reverberating across the state.

California Divide
California has some of the best and worst places in U.S. for raising children, report finds
Children who grow up in the San Jose area are better off than those raised in almost any other metropolitan region in the country, according to a new report measuring which U.S. neighborhoods give children the best chance of achieving economic success and good health. Nationally, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metropolitan area ranked second, just […]
By • February 3, 2020
photo of San Francisco skyline, illustrating the pressures of the local housing crisis. Photo Stephanie Vacher/Creative Commons
California Divide
Bay Area has highest income inequality in California
It’s official: The gap between the Bay Area’s haves and have-nots is wider than anywhere else in the state. Top income earners in the Bay Area make 12.2 times as much as those at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to new research from the Public Policy Institute of California, which analyzed 2018 U.S. […]
By • January 29, 2020
California Divide
Injuries at Fresno’s Amazon warehouse are triple industry average
Amanda Caballero wishes she could go back to work at Amazon. She made $15 an hour at the Fresno fulfillment center — several dollars more than the state’s minimum wage — and received more than three months of paid maternity leave. Her generous health insurance package covered her husband and five children, and she liked […]
By • January 19, 2020
California Divide
New ‘food hub’ for low-income residents launched in Bay Area
A new Alameda County program focused on the connections between poverty, food and employment opened Friday morning, the latest in a countywide effort to help low-income residents by increasing access to jobs and fresh produce. The newly built, 3,300-square-foot space will provide a commercial kitchen for small, home-based food entrepreneurs, land to grow fresh produce […]
By • January 17, 2020
Antoinette Martinez uses CalFresh to pay for her groceries at FoodMaxx
California Divide
California, 13 other states sue to stop Trump’s food stamp cuts
Fourteen states, including California, filed suit Thursday against the Trump administration to block a rule that would eliminate food stamps for an estimated 688,000 Americans. “No one should have to choose between a hot meal and paying their rent,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Yet again, the Trump Administration has failed […]
By • January 16, 2020
California Divide
Child support payback reform gets new life in proposed state budget
After vetoing a bill to reform the state’s child support payback system, Gov. Gavin Newsom has revived efforts to give families on public assistance a greater share of their support payments in his proposed 2020-21 budget. The changes, which if implemented would go into effect January 2022, would provide funding to boost the amount families […]
By • January 13, 2020

Gift this article

California Divide - Page 62 of 68 - CalMatters
News and analysis on poverty and income inequality in California.
CalMatters
California, explained