Thursday, October 31, 2019

CALIFORNIA, THE AMERICAN HELL HOLE THAT FEINSTEIN, PELOSI AND GAVIN NEWSOM CREATED TO SERVE OTHER RICH

California's three most powerful politicians -- House Speaker Nancy 

Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gavin Newsom -- are all 

multimillionaires. Their lives, homes and privileges bear no 

resemblance to those of other Californians living with the consequences

of their misguided policies and agendas.

Is California Becoming Premodern?

More than 2 million Californians were recently left without power after the state's largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric -- which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year -- preemptively shut down transmission lines in fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds.
Consumers blame the state for not cleaning up dead trees and brush, along with the utility companies for not updating their ossified equipment. The power companies in turn fault the state for so over-regulating utilities that they had no resources to modernize their grids.
Californians know that having tens of thousands of homeless in their major cities is untenable. In some places, municipal sidewalks have become open sewers of garbage, used needles, rodents and infectious diseases. Yet no one dares question progressive orthodoxy by enforcing drug and vagrancy laws, moving the homeless out of cities to suburban or rural facilities, or increasing the number of mental hospitals.
Taxpayers in California, whose basket of sales, gasoline and income taxes is the highest in the nation, quietly seethe while immobile on antiquated freeways that are crowded, dangerous and under nonstop makeshift repair.
Gas prices of $4 to $5 a gallon -- the result of high taxes, hyper-regulation and green mandates -- add insult to the injury of stalled commuters. Gas tax increases ostensibly intended to fund freeway expansion and repair continue to be diverted to the state's failing high-speed rail project.
Residents shrug that the state's public schools are 

among the weakest in the nation, often ranking in 

the bottom quadrant in standardized test scores. 

Elites publicly oppose charter schools but often put their own kids in private academies.

Californians know that to venture into a typical municipal emergency room is to descend into a modern Dante's Inferno. Medical facilities are overcrowded. They can be as unpleasant as they are bankrupting to the vanishing middle class that must face exorbitant charges to bring in an injured or sick child.
No one would dare to connect the crumbling infrastructure, poor schools and failing public health care with the non-enforcement of immigration laws, which has led to a massive influx of undocumented immigrants from the poorest regions of the world, who often arrive without fluency in English or a high-school education.
Stores are occasionally hit by swarming looters. Such Wild West criminals know how to keep their thefts under $950, ensuring that such "misdemeanors" do not warrant police attention. California's permissive laws have decriminalized thefts and break-ins. The result is that San Francisco now has the highest property crime rate per capita in the nation.
Has California become premodern?
Millions of fed-up middle-class taxpayers have fled the state. Their presence as a stabilizing influence is sorely missed. About one-third of the nation's welfare recipients live in California. Millions of poor newcomers require enormously expensive state health, housing, education, legal and law-enforcement services.
California is now a one-party state. Democrats have supermajorities in both houses of the legislature. Only seven of the state's 53 congressional seats are held by Republicans. The result is that there is no credible check on a mostly coastal majority.
Huge global wealth in high-tech, finance, trade and academia poured into the coastal corridor, creating a new nobility with unprecedented riches. Unfortunately, the new aristocracy adopted mindsets antithetical to the general welfare of Californians living outside their coastal enclaves. The nobodies have struggled to buy high-priced gas, pay exorbitant power bills and deal with shoddy infrastructure -- all of which resulted from the policies of the distant somebodies.
California's three most powerful politicians -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gavin Newsom -- are all multimillionaires. Their lives, homes and privileges bear no resemblance to those of other Californians living with the consequences of their misguided policies and agendas.
The state's elite took revolving-door entries and exits for granted. They assumed that California was so naturally rich, beautiful and well-endowed that there would always be thousands of newcomers who would queue up for the weather, the shore, the mountains and the hip culture.
Yet California is nearing the logical limits of progressive adventurism in policy and politics.
Residents carefully plan long highway trips as if they were ancient explorers charting dangerous routes. Tourists warily enter downtown Los Angeles or San Francisco as if visiting a politically unstable nation.
Insatiable state tax collectors and agencies are viewed by the public as if they were corrupt officials of Third World countries seeking bribes. Californians flip their switches unsure of whether the lights will go on. Many are careful about what they say, terrified of progressive thought police who seem more worried about critics than criminals.
Our resolute ancestors took a century to turn a wilderness into California. Our irresolute generation in just a decade or two has been turning California into a wilderness.
Democrats Move Towards ‘Oligarchical Socialism,’ Says Forecaster Joel Kotkin


Associated Press
 4 Sep 2018299

Left-wing progressives are embracing a political alliance with Silicon Valley oligarchs who would trap Americans in a cramped future without hope of upward mobility for themselves or their children, says a left-wing political analyst in California.

Under the headline “America is moving toward an oligarchical socialism,” Joel Kotkin writes:
Historically, liberals advocated helping the middle class achieve greater independence, notably by owning houses and starting companies. But the tech oligarchy — the people who run the five most capitalized firms on Wall Street — have a far less egalitarian vision. Greg Fehrenstein, who interviewed 147 digital company founders, says most believe that “an increasingly greater share of economic wealth will be generated by a smaller slice of very talented or original people. Everyone else will increasingly subsist on some combination of part-time entrepreneurial ’gig work‘ and government aid.”
Numerous oligarchs — Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, founder of the Y Combinator — have embraced this vision including a “guaranteed wage,” usually $500 or a $1,000 monthly. Our new economic overlords are not typical anti-tax billionaires in the traditional mode; they see government spending as a means of keeping the populist pitchforks away. This may be the only politically sustainable way to expand “the gig economy,” which grew to 7 million workers this year, 26 percent above the year before.
Handouts, including housing subsidies, could guarantee for the next generation a future not of owned houses, but rented small, modest apartments. Unable to grow into property-owning adults, they will subsist while playing with their phones, video games and virtual reality in what Google calls “immersive computing.”
This plan, however, is being challenged by the return of populism and nationalism when President Donald Trump defeated the GOP’s corporatist candidates and the progressives’ candidate in 2016. In his 2017 inauguration, Trump declared:
For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment, it belongs to you …
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
For several years, Kotkin has been dissecting the Democrats’ shift from working-class politics toward a tacit alliance with the billionaires in the new information-technology industries that are centralizing wealth and power through the United States. In 2013, for example, he argued that California’s politics were increasingly “feudal“:
As late as the 80s, California was democratic in a fundamental sense, a place for outsiders and, increasingly, immigrants—roughly 60 percent of the population was considered middle class. Now, instead of a land of opportunity, California has become increasingly feudal. According to recent census estimates, the state suffers some of the highest levels of inequality in the country. By some estimates, the state’s level of inequality compares with that of such global models as the Dominican Republic, Gambia, and the Republic of the Congo.
At the same time, the Golden State now suffers the highest level of poverty in the country—23.5 percent compared to 16 percent nationally—worse than long-term hard luck cases like Mississippi. It is also now home to roughly one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, almost three times its proportion of the nation’s population.
Like medieval serfs, increasing numbers of Californians are downwardly mobile, and doing worse than their parents: native born Latinos actually have shorter lifespans than their parents, according to one recent report. Nor are things expected to get better any time soon. According to a recent Hoover Institution survey, most Californians expect their incomes to stagnate in the coming six months, a sense widely shared among the young, whites, Latinos, females, and the less educated.
Read Kotkin’s “oligarchal socialism” article here.
  
“Protecting citizens from industrial capitalism’s giant corporations? Where were the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight as the mortgage bubble blew up in 2008, nearly taking the whole financial system with it and producing the worst economic bust since the Great Depression, which even today has sunk the labor-force participation rate and hiked the suicide rate among working-class men and women to record levels?”



Income inequality is on the rise in California. In some Bay Area counties, the disparities are extreme.
An analysis of census data found a growing gap between rich and poor

By ERICA HELLERSTEIN | ehellerstein@bayareanewsgroup.com |
PUBLISHED: October 7, 2019 at 5:00 am | UPDATED: October 7, 2019 at 8:44 am
California is the Golden State — at least for those at the top of the income scale. For everyone else, the nickname may apply more to the sun than to money.
That’s one takeaway of a recent analysis of U.S.Census Bureau data by the California Budget and Policy Center (CBPC), which found a widening gap between the state’s haves and have-nots.
The CBPC analysis found major gains for California’s richest residents, modest gains for people with median incomes, and losses for the lowest income earners when adjusted for inflation.
Median household income in California, the CBPC reported, increased by 6.4%, from $70,744 in 2006 to $75,277 in 2018, adjusting for inflation. But for the top 5% of households, income grew by 18.6%, from $426,851 in 2006 to $506,421 in 2018, while households in the bottom 20% saw their average income fall by 5.3%, from $16,441 in 2006 to $15,562 in 2018. The analysis was based on the census agency’s latest American Community Survey report.
An increasing gap between rich and poor is not unique to California, as recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau show. From 2017 to 2018, the data indicate, income inequality also widened in eight other states, including Alabama, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Virginia and New Mexico, although in most other states it remained constant. Income inequality is typically measured through the Gini Index, which assigns a score of 0 to indicate perfect wealth distribution within a population and a score of 1 to represent total inequality. In 2018, the overall Gini Index for the U.S. was .485, which was “significantly higher” than its 2017 estimate of .482, the Bureau reported.
The trends in California are especially concerning, said Sara Kimberlin, senior policy analyst at CBPC, given the increases in the cost of living across the state. From 2006 to 2017, the organization found, inflation-adjusted median rent increased by 16% statewide, while median hourly wages for workers fell by half a percent.
“So that’s where the real challenge is that California has to face,” Kimberlin said. “We have two trends moving at the same time: Incomes remaining relatively flat for people in the middle and at the bottom of the income range, while the cost of living is going up.”
In the Bay Area, where the cost of housing has become a topic of national conversation, those tensions are felt acutely, said Megan Joseph, executive director of Rise Together, a regional coalition aimed at reducing poverty in the Bay Area.
The average income for top earners in many Bay Area counties in 2018 was even higher than the state average for the richest households, according to census data. And San Francisco County had the widest income disparity, with the top 5% of households making an average of $808,105, compared with $16,184 for the lowest 20%.
In San Mateo County, the richest earned $810,917 in 2018, while the bottom fifth collected $25,039. Alameda County reflected the statewide average more closely, with those at the top earning $539,883 and the bottom, $20,041. The CBPC report on the increasing income gap in the state, released on Sept. 26, did not include figures for individual counties.
“The Bay Area feels the income inequalities and the disparity between the numbers at the top and the stagnant wages at the bottom more than most other areas of California because of the cost of living,” Joseph said.
Alongside rising inequality, the data also showed high levels of poverty among Californians. An earlier analysis of census data from CBPC in September — based on the so-called supplemental poverty measure, which takes into account the cost of housing and other expenses — found that roughly 7.1 million people each year could not afford basic expenses between 2016 and 2018.
OPEN BORDERS: IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED!
"In the decade following the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the capitalist class has delivered powerful blows to the social position of the working class. As a result, the working class in the US, the world’s “richest country,” faces levels of economic hardship not seen since the 1930s."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-class-war-over-paying-living-wages.html

"Inequality has reached unprecedented levels: the wealth of America’s three richest people now equals the net worth of the poorest half of the US population."


Report: California’s Middle-Class Wages Rise by 1 Percent in 40 Years
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
NEIL MUNRO
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.
 The wage and housing problems are made worse — especially for families — by the loss of employment benefits as companies and investors spike stock prices by cutting costs. The report says:
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 high cost of housing (71%) is the most common reason given by voters for wanting to leave California,” polling director Mark DiCamillo said. “However, high taxes (58%) and the state’s political culture (46%) are also prominently mentioned, particularly by Republicans and conservatives.”

 

 

Walters: California Paradox: Economy–and poverty–hit record highs

California’s median income rose to among the nation’s highest in 2018, but it ranked 50th in housing

 

By happenstance, events in the final week of September perfectly framed what one might call the California Paradox — a thriving, world-class economy with stubbornly high levels of poverty and a widening divide between the haves and have-nots.
The week began with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s keynote address to a United Nations-sponsored forum on the environment and economic growth, in which he crowed about California’s economic achievements.
“It’s an interesting fact, while this country is running $1 trillion-a-year deficits, California is running historic budget surpluses,” Newsom told the international audience. “It’s an interesting fact that California has enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in its history, more consecutive months of net job creation than at any time in its history, and significantly outperforming the United States of America in GDP growth over a five-year period — not despite our environmental strategies, but because of our environmental strategies.
“As we change the way we produce and consume energy, it is spawning new companies, new energy, new growth. We lead in venture capital and green tech. Five to one — five to one, the number of clean energy jobs in the state of California versus fossil fuel jobs.”
But a few days later, the Census Bureau released new state-by-state data on income and poverty, underscoring once again that California is one of the leaders in both categories.
While California’s median personal income rose by 2.3% in 2018 to $75,277, one of the nation’s highest levels, it was one of only five states in which the “Gini index,” which measures income inequality, increased.
“New census figures released today show rising income inequality across the state and millions of California residents who are struggling to get by on extremely low incomes, while higher-income households experienced more income growth,” the California Budget & Policy Center said in its analysis of the Census Bureau data.
The organization noted that “from 2006 to 2018, the median household income in California increased by 6.4%, after adjusting for inflation, but the average real income for the lowest quintile of households (those in the bottom 20%) actually decreased by 5.3% while the inflation-adjusted average income for the top 5% of households increased by 18.6%, or nearly three times as much as the increase in the median income.”
That analysis is in line with another recent measure of wellbeing by an organization called the “Social Progress Imperative.” It merges dozens of economic and other factors to generate a “social progress index” for nations and their subdivisions, including states — and California doesn’t fare well.
It ranks 33rd among states and not surprisingly, its housing crisis is a major reason why. The index places it at 49th in the category of “basic human needs,” which includes a 50th place in “shelter.”
Finally, a few days after Newsom bragged about California’s economic achievements to the elite economic gathering in New York, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies released its latest poll, revealing that half of the state’s voters have considered leaving the state.
“The high cost of housing (71%) is the most common reason given by voters for wanting to leave California,” polling director Mark DiCamillo said. “However, high taxes (58%) and the state’s political culture (46%) are also prominently mentioned, particularly by Republicans and conservatives.”
Moreover, just 50 percent of those surveyed agree that California is now the best place to live.
There you have it, the California Paradox.



Report: Gary, Indiana, Named 

Most ‘Miserable’ U.S. City
MIRA OBERMAN/AFP/Getty Images
6 Oct 20196
2:11

The city of Gary, Indiana, was ranked the most “miserable” place to live on a list of the 50 most miserable cities in America, according to a report from Business Insider.

Business Insider ranked Gary, Indiana— just outside of Chicago— as the most miserable city followed by Port Arthur, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan.
The publication said it relied on U.S. Census data— specifically statistics on crime, population changes, drug addiction, job opportunities, household incomes, abandoned homes, and how likely a city would face problems with natural disasters.
The outlet said that what all “miserable” U.S. cities had in common were “few opportunities, devastation from natural disasters, high crime and addiction rates, and often many abandoned houses.”
For example, Gary has one of the highest crime rates in America. Statistics show that the odds of becoming a victim of violent or property crime is one out of 25 in Gary, according to crime rate tracker Neighborhood Scout.
The city was also known for selling a handful of homes for $1 back in January to reverse the decades of blight that had plagued the city.
Many cities in California and New Jersey were the states that made up the remainder of the list, with ten in California and nine in New Jersey.
The ten California cities made a strong showing on the list:
Bell Gardens (14); Compton (41); El Monte (22); Hemet (44); Huntington Park (10); Lancaster (50); Lynwood (21); Montebello (40); Palmdale; and San Bernardino (42).
The nine New Jersey states also made a significant showing on the list:
Camden (8); Newark (5); New Brunswick (11); Passaic (4); Paterson (19); Plainfield (30); Trenton (17); Union City (15); and West New York (29).

 

The 50 most miserable cities in America

Business InsiderSeptember 28, 2019

·         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.

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


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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


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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


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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 pollutionLead contamination has been a particular concern for residents.

22. El Monte, California


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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


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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


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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.

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.




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