According to the United States Census Bureau Supplemental Poverty Measure, California has the highest poverty rate in the country. One in five people in California are living in poverty and the state’s residents account for 33% of all those on welfare in the United States, despite the state only being 12% of the country’s population. The state spent $958 billion on welfare programs between 1992-2015. According to the study, 60% of Californians are jobless and living in poverty.

California is a sanctuary state and is often championing movements which find ways to grant protections and entitlements to immigrants at the expense of Americans. While an astronomical 30% of Americans in California are receiving means-tested welfare, this pales in comparison to the 55% rate of use by immigrant families consuming this type of welfare. The state is handing over tons of cash to foreign nationals at the expense of Americans.

One contributing factor to their high poverty levels is their lack of affordable housing. Housing in California has become increasingly out of reach for the middle class due to building regulations and space constraints. This has caused housing to consume far more of the average residents income than in other parts of the country, leaving them with less money for food, transportation, healthcare and other services.

The state simply does not have enough jobs to support the hordes of immigrants they have taken in. The minority of the population who do hold jobs in California are often competing with illegals for work and having their wages suppressed by the mass migration of people from the third world who are willing to work much less an American whom expects a living wage be paid for their labor.

Democrats in California have consistently rejected forcing work requirements on the able-bodied individuals who receive welfare. Forcing those who can work to look for a job and/or maintain employment before receiving benefits is a policy unpalatable for the democrats who control the state. Americans in California are mostly jobless and the ones who can find work are actually having their money taken through the highest state income tax in the union to support immigrants, the majority of which are on welfare.

The current system in place in California is unsustainable, according to a memorandum sent to Senator Boxer from Legislative Director Sean Moore and Senior Economic Advisor Marcus Stanley, “…the estimate that in 2009 California received $1.45 in Federal expenditures for each dollar paid in taxes is conservative and likely to be an underestimate.” However, the most recent Legislative analysis concluded that in 2015 the state received $0.99 for every dollar contributed in federal taxes, meaning the state was able to reign in some of its spending or mitigate it through higher state taxes.

Over the past two decades the state has increased taxes on its resident, on both their income and their purchases, i.e. gasoline. The state has also been continuously flooded with poor economic migrants, who are using up a huge portion of the available assistance paid for by and initially implemented to help Americans. California lost more Americans, who are statistically net contributors to overall tax revenue, in a mass exodus in 2017 than any other state, only to be replaced by foreign nationals who are a statistical net drain on their tax revenue, and a burden to their schools, roads and infrastructure.

California under Democratic rule has seen a rapid decline in both its ability to sustain itself and the quality of life for most of their residents. Their population of poverty stricken is vastly disproportionate to their overall population. Policies which continue to flood the state with parasitic foreign nationals while continuing to raise taxes on the contributing population will only push more people out of the state, evaporating their tax base.

The poverty-stricken California is a sad condition for the state to be in, and if the state is able to lobby the government to provide Amnesty for DACA recipients, something they claim to want, the decline will only accelerate. The Congressional Budget Office conducted a study and found about one in four DACA recipients to be functionally illiterate in English.

Granting hordes of unskilled and illiterate foreign nationals will allow them to apply for more benefits than they are currently consuming wildly out of proportion, hindering the states ability to turn around this disturbing trend.