{"id":598338,"date":"2026-04-21T21:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:51:13","slug":"sky-high-costs-are-draining-wallets-statewide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598338\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky-high costs are draining wallets statewide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/p>\n

Alarm bells are ringing about the true state of California\u2019s economy despite claims from Gov. Gavin Newsom <\/a>that the state\u2019s GDP has reached a record $4.25 trillion last year.<\/p>\n

According to the Pacific Research Institute<\/a>, the average California household has about 35 percent less disposable income than the national average.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia may look wealthy on paper, but it does not feel that way for many families,\u201d said political strategist Jon Fleischman.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A A view of the Main Beach Coastline in Laguna Beach, Southern California. Home prices remain high. Getty Images\/iStockphoto <\/p>\n

Housing prices remain a huge burden on families, the report said, where they may pay more than double the national average in annual payments to finance a median-priced home.<\/p>\n

The other two factors, the report said, are energy costs and taxes.<\/p>\n

The average utility bill in California, for instance, was $686 per month compared to a national average of $610 per month. Lower-income families may actually have higher energy bills compared to wealthy homes near the coast. Businesses may actually spend twice as much for electricity than in other states, further raising costs of everyday goods.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, while the median California income is 20% larger than the national average, taxes reduce that advantage to only 17%.<\/p>\n

Belying the wonderful GDP figures is the poor job market in California, the report warned. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, California\u2019s share of the national economy is trending downward, from 14.5% to 13.8%.<\/p>\n

The job growth rate of non-farm jobs in California is less than half of the rest of the nation\u2019s, according to the report, since 2020. Private sector job growth in the state also significantly lags the country. The number of private sector jobs outside of health care outright declined.<\/p>\n

\"High High cost of living makes disposable income lower. AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The Golden State still dominates when it comes to technology and artificial intelligence, but even the tech sector is showing warning signs that the state isn\u2019t as dominant as before. In 2024, the number of tech jobs in California fell by 3.4 percent \u2013 the largest decline in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The culprit, the report argues, is the state\u2019s policymaking. Lawmakers need to fix the high tax burden and cost of doing business<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia has been economically uncompetitive for many years, and the consequences are becoming too large to ignore as the outflows of businesses and families are now evident in the state\u2019s economic data,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alarm bells are ringing about the true state of California\u2019s economy despite claims from Gov. Gavin Newsom that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,2013,260653,31641,194310],"class_list":{"0":"post-598338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-gavin-newsom","11":"tag-pacific-research-institute","12":"tag-southern-california","13":"tag-state-of-california"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}