Taken from the Los Angeles Times article "Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?".

The rudeness of numbers

• "Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor."
• "Several state and municipal benefit programs overlap with one another; in some cases, individuals with incomes 200% above the poverty line receive benefits."
• "California state and local governments spent nearly $958 billion from 1992 through 2015 on public welfare programs"
• "California, with 12% of the American population, is home today to about one in three of the nation’s welfare recipients."
• "With 883,000 full-time-equivalent state and local employees in 2014, California has an enormous bureaucracy."
• "More than four in 10 households spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2015."
• "The California Environmental Quality Act, passed in 1971, is one example; it can add $1 million to the cost of completing a housing development"
• "California energy costs are as much as 50% higher than the national average"
• "In certain California counties, the rate of energy poverty was as high as 15% of all households"