{"id":248463,"date":"2026-04-02T13:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/248463\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T13:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:50:07","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-california-may-be-expensive-but-our-minimum-wage-helps-make-up-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/248463\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: California may be expensive, but our minimum wage helps make up for it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the editor: I always enjoy these studies about people leaving California. This study talked about people moving to Texas and Indiana (\u201cLife after California: People find dramatically lower costs, are more likely to buy homes, new data show,\u201d<\/a> March 31). Do you know what the minimum wage is in those states? It\u2019s $7.25 an hour<\/a>. That\u2019s less than half of the minimum wage here.<\/p>\n

Is the price of a new car in Indiana less than half of what it is here? How about groceries? I find it difficult to believe life is better financially at $7.25 an hour as opposed to $16.90 an hour.<\/p>\n

Mary Montes, West Hills<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: Is this something new? When my parents moved to California in 1960, they left behind a Minnesota house for which they had paid about $5,000. They bought a brand new San Fernando Valley tract house for $25,000 that came without air conditioning, fences or landscaping.<\/p>\n

Joan Swenson, Bakersfield<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: Californians are leaving in droves to find cheaper housing. Not a surprise.<\/p>\n

Local California politicians are doing everything in their power to stop housing development through zoning, work requirements and red tape. Sadly, also not a surprise.<\/p>\n

But hey, at least we can say we \u201cretained neighborhood character\u201d when all but the wealthiest have moved away.<\/p>\n

Nick Hooper, Los Angeles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: I always enjoy these studies about people leaving California. This study talked about people moving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,2072,477,2882,9520,110871,3663,1838,1637,63,3479,592,4743,18400,110872],"class_list":{"0":"post-248463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-editor","12":"tag-half","13":"tag-hour","14":"tag-indiana","15":"tag-joan-swenson","16":"tag-landscaping","17":"tag-letter","18":"tag-life","19":"tag-los-angeles-times","20":"tag-minimum-wage","21":"tag-people","22":"tag-study","23":"tag-surprise","24":"tag-work-requirement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}