CALIFORNIA IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DEMOCRATS RUN THINGS!
Report:
California’s Middle-Class Wages Rise by 1 Percent in 40 Years
Justin
Sullivan/Getty Images
3 Sep 2019172
6:24
Middle-class wages in
progressive California have risen by 1 percent in the last 40 years, says a
study by the establishment California Budget and Policy Center.
“Earnings for California’s
workers at the low end and middle of the wage scale have generally declined or
stagnated for decades,” says the report, titled “California’s Workers Are
Increasingly Locked Out of the State’s Prosperity.” The report continued:
In
2018, the median hourly earnings for workers ages 25 to 64 was $21.79, just 1%
higher than in 1979, after adjusting for inflation ($21.50, in 2018 dollars)
(Figure 1). Inflation-adjusted hourly earnings for low-wage workers, those at the
10th percentile, increased only slightly more, by 4%, from $10.71 in 1979
to $11.12 in 2018.
The report admits that the
state’s progressive economy is delivering more to investors and less to
wage-earners. “Since 2001, the share of state private-sector [annual new
income] that has gone to worker compensation has fallen by 5.6 percentage
points — from 52.9% to 47.3%.”
In 2016, California’s Gross
Domestic Product was $2.6 trillion, so the 5.6 percent drop shifted $146
billion away from wages. That is roughly $3,625 per person in 2016.
The report notes that wages
finally exceeded 1979 levels around 2017, and it splits the credit between the
Democrats’ minimum-wage boosts and President Donald Trump’s go-go economy.
The 40 years of flat wages are
partly hidden by a wave of new products and services. They include almost-free
entertainment and information on the Internet, cheap imported coffee in
supermarkets, and reliable, low-pollution autos in garages.
But the impact of California’s
flat wages is made worse by California’s rising housing costs, the report says,
even though it also ignores the rent-spiking impact of the establishment’s
pro-immigration policies:
In just the last decade
alone, the increase in the typical household’s rent far outpaced the rise in
the typical full-time worker’s annual earnings, suggesting that working
families and individuals are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends
meet. In fact, the basic cost of living in many parts of the state is more
than many single individuals or families can expect to earn, even if all adults
are working full-time.
…
Specifically, inflation-adjusted
median household rent rose by 16% between 2006 and 2017, while
inflation-adjusted median annual earnings for individuals working at least 35
hours per week and 50 weeks per year rose by just 2%, according to a Budget
Center analysis of US Census Bureau, American Community Survey data.
Many workers are being paid
little more today than workers were in 1979 even as worker productivity has
risen. Fewer employees have access to retirement plans sponsored by their
employers, leaving individual workers on their own to stretch limited dollars
and resources to plan how they’ll spend their later years affording the high
cost of living and health care in California. And as union representation has
declined, most workers today cannot negotiate collectively for better working
conditions, higher pay, and benefits, such as retirement and health care, like
their parents and grandparents did. On top of all this, workers who take on
contingent and independent work (often referred to as “gig work”), which in
many cases appears to be motivated by the need to supplement their primary job
or fill gaps in their employment, are rarely granted the same rights and legal
protections as traditional employees.
The center’s report tries to
blame the four-decade stretch of flat wages on the declining clout of unions.
But unions’ decline was impacted by the bipartisan elites’ policy of
mass-migration and imposed diversity.
In
2018, Breitbart reported how Progressives for
Immigration Reform interviewed Blaine Taylor, a union carpenter, about the
economic impact of migration:
TAYLOR: If I hired a framer to do
a small addition [in 1988], his wage would have been $45 an hour. That was
the minimum for a framing contractor, a good carpenter. For a helper, it was
about $25 an hour, for a master who could run a complete job, it was about $45
an hour. That was the going wage for plumbers as well. His helpers typically
got $25 an hour.
…
Now, the average wage in Los
Angeles for construction workers is less than $11 an hour. They can’t go lower
than the minimum wage. And much of that, if they’re not being paid by the hour
at less than $11 an hour, they’re being paid per piece — per piece of plywood
that’s installed, per piece of drywall that’s installed. Now, the subcontractor
can circumvent paying them as an hourly wage and are now being paid by 1099,
which means that no taxes are being taken out. [Emphasis added]
Diversity
also damaged the unions by shredding California’s civic solidarity. In 2007,
the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center posted a report with the title
“Latino Gang Members in Southern California are Terrorizing and Killing
Blacks.” In the same year, an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times described another murder by Latino
gangs as “a manifestation of an increasingly common trend: Latino ethnic
cleansing of African Americans from multiracial neighborhoods.”
The center’s board members
include the executive director of the state’s SEIU union, a professor from the
Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and
the research director at the “Program for Environmental and Regional Equity” at
the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Outside
California, President Donald Trump’s low-immigration policies are pressuring
employers to raise Americans’ wages in a hot economy. The Wall Street Journal reportedAugust 29:
Overall, median weekly earnings
rose 5% from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the same quarter in 2018, according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For workers between the ages of 25 and 34,
that increase was 7.6%.
The 50
most miserable cities in America
158 Comments
East side of Detroit, Michigan.
Charles
Ommanney / Getty
·
The
most miserable city in the US is Gary, Indiana.
·
·
The
state with the most miserable cities is California with 10.
·
·
New
Jersey is close behind with nine, and Florida comes in third with six.
·
These
cities have things in common — few opportunities, devastation from natural
disasters, high crime and addiction rates, and often many abandoned houses.
Not the worst, just the most
miserable.
We've identified the 50 most
miserable cities in the US, using census data from 1,000 cities across the
country, taking into consideration population change (because if people are
leaving it's usually for a good reason), the percentage of people working,
median household incomes, the percentage of people without healthcare, median
commute times, and the number of people living in poverty.
Often, these cities have been
devastated by natural disasters. They've had to deal with blight, and with high
crime rates. Economies have struggled after industry has collapsed. These
cities also tend to have high rates of addiction.
The state with the most miserable
cities was California, with 10 in the top 50. New Jersey was second with nine,
and Florida had six.
Here are the 50 most miserable cities in the US, based on US census data.
Here are the 50 most miserable cities in the US, based on US census data.
50. Lancaster, California
Wikimedia
Lancaster, a desert town, has
almost 160,000 people, 51% of whom work, and 23% of whom live in poverty. It's
had crime problems, both with meth addiction and neo-Nazis. But
Mayor R. Rex Parris is doing what he can to kickstart the city, including looking to China for investment.
49. St Louis, Missouri
Colter
Peterson / St Louis Post-Dispatch / TNS / Getty
St. Louis has almost 303,000
people, but it lost 5% between 2010 and 2018. Sixty-five percent of people work
and one quarter are living in poverty.
The city has had struggled with
crime and gun violence. In 2015, killings rose 33% from the year
before to 159 deaths. The city has relatively relaxed gun laws,
including allowing people to carry loaded guns in cars without permits.
Then-Mayor Francis Slay said crime was the No. 1 priority for
the city.
48. Pasadena, Texas
Chris
Graythen / Getty
Pasadena has 153,000 people, 65%
of whom are working, and one-fifth live in poverty. While the median income is
$50,207, nearly 29% of people don't have health insurance.
Mostly working-class, the city
is based near petrochemical plants, and is known for its race issues. It
used to be home to the Texas headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. Now, it's
divided. In the north it's primarily made up of Latino people and to the south
it's mostly white people.
47. Macon-Bibb County, Georgia
Grant
Blankenship / Macon Telegraph / MCT / Getty
Macon-Bibb County has 153,000
people, but it lost 1.7% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-six
percent are working, and 26% live in poverty.
One of Macon-Bibb County's
biggest problems is blight. Across the city there are about 3,700 unoccupied buildings, including
dilapidated homes and overgrown yards.
46. Danville, Virginia
Michael
Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Danville has 40,000 people, but
its population fell by 5.5% between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-five percent of people
are working and 21% live in poverty.
It used to be one of the richest cities in the Piedmont area.
But it's struggled since its tobacco and textile mills shut down. However, the
city is fighting for a comeback. It's set up solar farms, and its downtown is
in the midst of a rehabilitation to
turn abandoned warehouses into mixed-use developments.
45. Shreveport, Louisiana
Deputy
Josh Cagle / Bossier Sheriff's Office / Handout / Reuters
Shreveport has about 189,000
people, and lost nearly 6% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-eight
percent of people work, and 26% are living in poverty.
In 2015, it struggled with floods from
the Red River. Its murder rate also doubled from
2015 to 2016, up to 42 murders, and the city also had an increase in
other crimes, like rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
44. Hemet, California
Gina
Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Hemet has a population of 85,000
people and between 2010 and 2018, it grew by 8.5%. However, it's struggled
since the 2008 recession. Twenty-three percent of people live in poverty, and
crime rates are high. In 2016, 623 cars were stolen, 170 robberies were
reported, and police logged 398 aggravated assaults — the most this century.
43. Mansfield, Ohio
Eric
Thayer / Reuters
Mansfield has 46,000 residents,
but lost 2.7% between 2010 and 2018. Forty-eight percent of people are working,
and 24% are living in poverty.
It used to have lots of
industrial work, with people making things like steel, machinery, and stoves,
but that dried up in the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, in 2010, a GM factory closed its doors, leading to more
job losses. It's also had a surge in crime, and between 2012 and 2017, violent crimes rose by 37%.
42. San Bernardino, California
AP
Photo/Reed Saxon
Of San Bernardino's 216,000
residents, 57% are employed, and 30% live in poverty.
It's 60 miles east of Los
Angeles, and has an interesting history.
It's where McDonalds began, as well as the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. Along
with a tough recession, it had a steel plant and an Air Force base close down,
meaning even fewer jobs.
41. Compton, California
Mario
Anzuoni / Reuters
Compton has 96,000 people, 40% of
whom aren't working, and 23% live in poverty.
The city struggles with poverty
and unemployment. But it's no longer as dangerous as the way it was portrayed
in the film "Straight Outta Compton."
In 1991 there were 87 murders, and in 2014, it was down to 17.
40. Montebello, California
Frederick
J. Brown / AFP / Getty
Of Montebello's 62,632 people,
60% are working, and 14% live in poverty. The average commute time is 33
minutes, and 19% of people don't have health insurance.
A big issue is affordable housing. A home-ownership counselor told the
New York Times in 2019 that prospects for first-time buyers
weren't good, and that opportunities to live there weren't growing.
39. Harlingen, Texas
Wikimedia
Harlingen has 65,000 residents;
56% are working, and 30% live in poverty.
It's a hot city, with little
rainfall, although recently, it's been dealing with flooding. It's also one
of three cities where 2,000 immigrants were released in
2019, putting pressure on the city to help them.
38. Reading, Pennsylvania
Michael
Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Reading has 88,495 residents,
where almost 62% of people are working, and 36% live in poverty. In 2011, The
New York Times said it was the poorest city in the US.
Its economy struggled after
factories closed down or downsized, laying people off. An estimated 44% of households are on food stamps,
among the most in the country.
37. Hallandale Beach, Florida
Wikimedia
Hallandale Beach has about 40,000
people, 60% of whom are working; 20% live in poverty. More than 29% of people
are without health insurance.
Halfway between Miami beach and
Fort Lauderdale, it's been called a "once scruffy beach town," by the Wall Street Journal. It
also has plenty of strip clubs and has been nicknamed "Hound-ale
Beach."
36. Palmdale, California
Anne
Cusack / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Palmdale has 156,667 people — 59%
are in the workforce, and 19% live in poverty.
It also has a median commute time
of 42.7 minutes, which is the highest on the list. It was at one point called "the foreclosure capital of
California."
35. Anderson, Indiana
Wikimedia
Anderson has 55,000 residents,
but lost 2% between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-six percent of people are employed,
and one-quarter live in poverty.
Formerly a thriving GM city with
24 factories, things deteriorated when the carmaker closed factories and 23,000 people lost their jobs.
It's also been a city that has been dealing with blight. In 2015, the city was given $2.8 million to
tear down 100 abandoned homes, and there were hundreds more that
could have qualified.
34. Fort Pierce, Florida
Michael
S. Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Fort Pierce has 46,000 people,
and grew by almost 10% between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of people there
are employed, and almost 36% of people in poverty.
This city used to have an economy based around citrus farming,
but struggled with diseases and the effects of trade deals. It also has to replenish the sand on its beaches every
few years, because of ocean erosion.
33. North Miami Beach, Florida
Wikimedia
North Miami Beach has almost 46,000
people; 65% are working, and just under 20% are living in poverty. But 32% of
residents don't have healthcare, and the average commute time is 31 minutes.
Another issue for living in this
area could be the tumultuous politics — two recent mayors have faced
criminal charges for their spending.
32. Jackson, Mississippi
Jonathon
Bachman / Reuters
Jackson has almost 165,000
residents, but between 2010 and 2018 it lost more than 5% of its population.
Sixty-two percent of the population is working, and almost 29% live in poverty.
In February, the city threatened to cut off
water for 20,000 people, because $45 million worth of bills hadn't
been paid. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, elected in 2017, said his goal was to
make the city the "most radical" on
Earth, by taking on issues like poverty in new ways.
31. Saginaw, Michigan
Wikimedia
Saginaw has 48,000 people, and
between 2010 and 2018 it lost 6% of its population. Fifty-five percent of
people are working and nearly 34% are living in poverty.
Like many other cities on this
list, it used to have a lot of manufacturing jobs — at one point around 25,000 with General Motors. But
they didn't last.
Some locals reportedly refer to
the city as "sag-nasty" because
of its issues with crime. In May 2019, violent crime had fallen in
the city, with 16 shootings to date, compared to 30 at that point in 2018.
30. Plainfield, New Jersey
Wikimedia
Plainfield has 50,693 people, 70%
of whom are working, and one-fifth of whom live in poverty. Nearly one-third
are without health insurance, and the median commute time is 31 minutes.
It used to be a violent city — in
1990 there were 719 violent crimes,
but since then things have improved, although in 2016 there were 12 murders.
29. West New York, New Jersey
Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
West New York has nearly 53,000
people, and it grew by 6.6% between 2010 and 2018. Almost 70% are working, and
22% are living in poverty.
Cleanliness and parking are
meant to be two of the biggest issues for its new mayor. The median commute
time is 37 minutes.
28. Miami Gardens, Florida
Joe
Skipper / Reuters
Miami Gardens has 113,000 people
— 60% are working, while about 22% live in poverty.
In 2014, it was called the "stop and frisk capital of
America," after an investigation showed nearly 57,000 people
had been frisked since 2008.
Another issue in the area is the
cost of water. Because it comes from a plant owned by the City of North Miami
Beach, the cost of living is a little bit higher. In March, the city was suing
to fight the extra 25% surcharge.
27. Cleveland, Ohio
Benjamin
Lowy / Getty
Cleveland, sometimes called the "mistake by the lake",
has 384,000 people. Its population fell 3% between 2010 and 2018. Nearly 59% of
the population is working, and 35% live in poverty. An August 2019 report found
that half of those living in poverty are
working.
The city has struggled for years
since losing the bulk of its manufacturing industry. In 2010, Forbes said it was the most
miserable city in the US. It also had a bad year for gun violence in 2015, with 85 gun
homicides.
26. Youngstown, Ohio
Brian
Snyder / Reuters
Youngstown has about 65,000
people, and lost 3% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of
its population is working and nearly 37% of people live in poverty.
It used to have a population of
170,000, and was the third biggest steel producer in the
United States, until the factory began downsizing from 1977 onward.
It was also recorded as having some of the worst air pollution in Ohio in
2017.
25. North Miami, Florida
Carlo
Allegri / Reuters
North Miami has about 63,000
people, 65% of whom are working, while 23% in poverty.
One of the big issues it faces is
flooding, even when it doesn't rain. Sometimes, all that's necessary for flooding is a full
moon. It is also facing problems around septic tanks (the city has
2,780) that soon might not be able to operate properly, because of rising sea
levels. This could result in wastewater ending up in yards and
other places it's not meant to be.
24. Huntington, West Virginia
Lexi
Browning / Reuters
Huntington has 46,000 people, and
it lost 6.4% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Just over half are
working, and about a third live in poverty.
Formerly a thriving coal mining
town with 90,000 people in 1950,
it has since fallen on harder times. In 2008, the city was described as the unhealthiest in America.
The severe opioid crisis has led Huntington to be named America's overdose capital. But overdoses have
fallen since 2017.
23. Hammond, Indiana
Scott
Olson / Getty
Hammond has about 76,000 people,
and its population fell by 6.2% between 2010 and 2018, Sixty-one
percent of people are in the labor force, and 22% live in poverty.
A 2014 study found the city was
one of the most industrial in the state, and as a result had problems with air and water
pollution. Lead contamination has
been a particular concern for residents.
22. El Monte, California
Wikimedia
El Monte has 115,000 residents;
58% of its population is working, and 22% live in poverty. The average commute
time is a half hour.
The city, which is located near
two freeways and close to Los Angeles, had a lot of revenue coming in from car
dealerships, but struggled during the recession,
when three dealerships closed, and the city's tax revenue fell. It's continued
to have issues with finances, and the city is now divided over the future of
marijuana production — one large facility in particular.
21. Lynwood, California
Lawrence
K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Lynwood has 70,500 residents —
60% work and 23% are impoverished. It was once called "the best place to
live best." But things didn't stay that way.
The construction of Interstate 105,
which cut right through the city,
caused many to leave their homes, and 1,000 homes and businesses to be knocked
down. More recently, officials have struggled to manage the city's finances,
resulting in losses that could have been used to help the city.
20. Huntsville, Texas
Richard
Carson / Reuters
Huntsville has 41,500 residents;
39% of its people are working, and almost 35% live in poverty. However, the low
employment is in part because those living in prisons are counted in the city's
population.
The Department of Criminal
Justice is the city's biggest employer,
providing nearly 7,000 jobs. Since 1999, Texas' executions have been done
exclusively out of Huntsville.
19. Paterson, New Jersey
Eric
Thayer / Reuters
Paterson has 145,000 residents,
57.5% of its population is working, and 29% live in poverty.
It used to produce silk in the 19th century, but it's
since struggled. In a cruel twist of fate, the Great Falls, which was used to
power factories, ended up flooding the city after Hurricane Irene
in 2011.
Between 2009 and 2016, the city's tax revenue fell by 38%.
It's also had problems with blight — at
one point it had 1,250 abandoned homes, but that dropped to 770 in 2016.
18. Albany, Georgia
Tami
Chappell / Reuters
Nicknamed "the good life
city," Albany has 75,000 people, although its population fell by almost 3%
between 2010 and 2018. Nearly 58% of the population is working, and a third
live in poverty.
Along with poverty and crime, it
also has been dealing with severe damage and
ruined crops from a severe tornado and Hurricane Irma in the
last few years.
17. Trenton, New Jersey
Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
Trenton has a population of
84,000. Almost 60% of people are working, and 27% are living in poverty.
It used to be an industrial city
with a catchphrase, "Trenton makes, the world takes,"
but has since fallen on harder times. Its violent crime isn't increasing, but
neighborhood gangs have been known to fight each other, and gun violence is a problem.
16. Cicero, Illinois
Scott
Olson / Getty
Cicero has 81,500 residents, but
that fell by 3% between 2010 and 2018. Two-thirds of people are working and
just under 20% live in poverty. The median commute time is 31 minutes.
It's known for being Al Capone's "private
playground" back in the 1920s, and since then, the city
has fought the nickname and crime. In 1999, the city even voted to make gang members leave within 60 days,
or face a daily $500 fine.
15. Union City, New Jersey
Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
Union City has 68,500 residents,
almost 70% are working, while 23% live in poverty. The average commute time is
33 minutes long.
The city is known by some as
"Havana on the Hudson," due to 80% of its residents identifying as
Hispanic, many of whom fled from Cuba. It's only 1.28 square miles, making it
one of the most densely populated areas in the
US.
14. Bell Gardens, California
Allen
J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Bell Gardens has 42,300
residents; 63% of people working, and almost 30% are living in poverty.
According to a city official in
1991, the problem with the city was too
many people. The city has had to depend on a casino for much of its
tax revenue — in 2002, it provided more than half.
13. Hialeah, Florida
C. M.
Guerrero / Miami Herald / TNS / Getty
Hialeah has 239,000 residents —
56% of whom are working, while almost 26% live in poverty. Nearly 31% don't
have health insurance.
With a primarily Hispanic
population, it's one of the least diverse cities in
the country. It's also been rated as the worst city in the US for having an
active lifestyle.
12. Brownsville, Texas
Sergio
Flores / AFP / Getty
Brownsville has 183,000
residents, 56% of people are working, and more than 31% of people are living in
poverty. More than 35% don't have health insurance.
The city is on the Mexican
border, and often has unauthorized immigrants passing through, making it one of the most patrolled places in
the country. According to locals, three different types of helicopter fly
overhead. Concern around immigration has also made it difficult for some
residents to sell their properties.
11. New Brunswick, New Jersey
Wikimedia
New Brunswick has 56,000 residents,
54% of people are working, and 35% are living in poverty. It has had problems
with crime – In 2017, the city's assaults with guns rose
64%.
10. Huntington Park, California
Allen
J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Huntington Park, the 10th most
miserable city in the US, has 58,000 residents, 63% of people are working, and
28% of people live in poverty. The median commute time is 31 minutes.
It has a checkered history with waste
management. A former waste disposal facility situated in the
community is being cleaned up, but work was suspended after residents complained about dust and
the smell.
9. Warren, Ohio
Alan
Freed / Reuters
Warren has 38,000 residents, and
its population fell by 7.7% between 2010 and 2018. About half of people are
working, and two-thirds live in poverty.
It's had a slow economy for a
while, but things weren't helped when General Motors announced in 2018 it would stop
work in a plant nearby, meaning people had to leave the city to
find work. Along with Youngstown, Warren has the second highest rate of people
struggling to find enough food in the country.
8. Camden, New Jersey
Spencer
Platt / Getty
Camden has 74,000 residents, and
its population fell by 4% between 2010 and 2018. Nearly 57% of people are in
the work force, and 37% live in poverty. The average household income is
$26,105 — the lowest on this list.
It used to be a manufacturing
city, but that fell to pieces between the 1950s and 1970s.
It's had a high crime rate and been known as one of the most dangerous cities
in the country, but it is improving. In 2017, there were 22 murders, which was the lowest number since 1987,
thanks in part to new police procedures.
7. Flint, Michigan
Rebecca
Cook / Reuters
Flint has 96,000 residents, and
it's fallen by 6% between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of people are working,
and 41% of people are living in poverty — the highest on this list.
The city has struggled with a
decline in manufacturing. By 1990, General Motors had
downsized in the area, leaving many without jobs.
Flint is perhaps best-known for
the water crisis it's been facing since
2014, where residents were being poisoned with lead. On top of that,
it's got 20,000 abandoned properties to
deal with, a consistently high murder rate, and an opioid problem.
6. Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Wikimedia.
Pine Bluff has 42,000 residents,
and between 2010 and 2018, it lost nearly 14% of its population — the biggest
loss on this list. Fifty-two percent of people are working, and 30% are living
in poverty.
People have been leaving due to
the state losing almost 3,000 manufacturing
jobs between 2016 and 2017. In 2019, things deteriorated
further when the Arkansas River flooded the city.
5. Newark, New Jersey
Kathy
Willens/AP Photo
Newark has 282,000 residents, 62%
are working, and 28% are living in poverty. The median commute time is over 35
minutes long.
Like Flint, it's had
problems with lead poisoning its water supply.
The city has also struggled with race relations, which bubbled up in violent riots
in 1967, and has it's fair share of violent crimes, particularly in 2013.
4. Passaic, New Jersey
Mark
Makela / Getty
Passaic has 70,000 residents —
58% of people working, and a third are living in poverty.
Its youth council said the city has problems with drugs,
violence, and poor sex education.
3. Detroit, Michigan
Joshua
Lott / Reuters
Detroit has 672,000 people, and
between 2010 and 2018, it lost nearly 6%. While 54% of people are working, 38%
live in poverty. The median household income is $27,838.
The city already lost many of its
residents between 1950 and 1980, when 600,000 people left after
the manufacturing industry collapsed. With 43,000 abandoned homes,
it's been struggling with blight, and is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the United
States.
2. Port Arthur, Texas
Michael
S. Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Port Arthur, a city surrounded by
oil refineries, has 55,000 residents. Fifty-three percent are working and 30%
are living in poverty.
The city was hit by hurricanes in
2005, 2008, and 2017. Harvey, the latest, caused $1.3 billion in damage.
Officials fear that if people keep leaving, Port Arthur will fall below 50,000
people and make it ineligible for federal
grants.
1. Gary, Indiana
Eric
Thayer / Reuters
Gary has 75,000 residents, but
lost 6% between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of the population works, and 36%
live in poverty. The most miserable city in the US was once a manufacturing
mecca, but those days are over.
A drug enforcement agent who grew
up in the area told The Guardian in 2017: "We used to be the murder
capital of the US, but there is hardly anybody left to kill. We used to be the
drug capital of the US, but for that you need money, and there aren't jobs or
things to steal here."
When the jobs dried up, most
white people left, and now 84% of people living in Gary are
African American. The city is experimenting with number of plans to
try and revitalize the area, including selling abandoned homes for $1.
Self-Destruction in
the Golden State
Relocating to
California was once the goal of many Americans. But in recent years, the luster
of living in the “Golden State” has dimmed considerably. Those who still
desire to move to what was once widely viewed as a semi-paradise on the West
Coast might want to assess what they’ll find before pulling up stakes and
heading there.
The Los Angeles Times has
surveyed and published some unnerving California developments. In the area
served by this newspaper, Times investigators
discovered what certainly should be termed failing grades if the region were an
educational institution. It’s not, of course, but over recent months, the hard
truths they found include:
• 95 percent of
warrants for murder in Los Angeles and 75 percent of those on the “most wanted”
list contain the names of illegal immigrants.
• Over two/thirds of
the births in L.A. County are from illegal immigrant parentage and are paid for
by taxpayers.
• Nearly 35 percent of
inmates in the state’s detention centers are illegal immigrants.
• According to the FBI,
half of the gang members in Los Angeles are illegal immigrants from south of
the state’s border.
• In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people
speak only English and 3.1 million speak only Spanish.
This information came
from the mass-circulation newspaper known for its liberal stance on almost all
issues. Featuring information about the effects of illegal immigration isn’t
its usual practice. The numbers we have cited didn’t appear in a single
article. The bad news compiled in this column was spread out over time. The bad
news has led many Californians to relocate themselves and their businesses to
other parts of the Golden State, even to other states.
Rather than simply
accept the conclusions reached above, I decided to ask a close friend who lives
in Los Angeles County if all of it was verifiable. He responded: “Yes it is.
But there are bigger problems that weren’t mentioned.” For instance, he pointed
to the growing number of vagrants living — and defecating — in the streets. He
said the water at the beaches is becoming hazardous to health and dangerous for
swimming. He told of business owners who have to get their sidewalks cleaned
each morning. And he reported that rats and disease-carrying insects have
proliferated. Los Angeles, he assured me, is filled with tents and absolute
filth.
He then added the
following:
Illegals are registered to vote. Many are
without a driver’s license and they get around in dilapidated autos without
insurance. A large number of these individuals find jobs and demand to be paid
only in cash. That way, there are no taxes paid or reported. While many
illegals are hard-working and otherwise model citizens, they are encouraged to
skirt the laws that everyone is supposed to obey. Even they would confirm what
the LA Times reported.
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi has responded to the situation by calling for the imposition of a new
“windfall tax” on retirement incomes and stock market gains. She wants to
distribute the funds to unemployed illegal immigrants. Wasn’t it Karl Marx who
suggested this as the way to solve such problems (“From each according to his
abilities, to each according to his needs.”)?
Pelosi regularly scoffs
at President Trump’s plan to build a wall at the border. She never airs the
most important reason for her opposition to keeping illegals from simply
walking into the United States. But her reason for such a stance is obvious:
She expects that the illegals who have already arrived and those who continue
to cross into the United States will vote for Democrats. And she’ll do whatever
she can to care for them, protect them, and urge their relatives to cross the
border as well. Illegal immigrants, like many legal immigrants and native-born
Americans, are overwhelmingly ignorant of limitations on government that made
America great. As soon as they are given the privilege of voting, they will
speed the conversion of California and the entire United States into a
duplicate of Venezuela or Cuba where central governments have total power.
Sad to state,
California isn’t alone in suffering from these problems. Pelosi’s home city of
San Francisco is close behind Los Angeles in its degradation. Other cities are
close behind. The entire nation seems determined to commit suicide. Illegal
immigration must be eliminated.
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