California’s Slow Collapse

California Governor Gavin Newsome has been popping up everywhere the last few months: Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, NBC’s “Today” Show, and in Mississippi to promote his PAC. Now, he says he’s traveling to China this month to talk about climate change. Everywhere he goes he claims the policies he champions in California are the path to prosperity. But if we cut through the rhetoric and look at the data, California is not prospering—it is slowly collapsing.

According to recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), total personal income in California declined by 0.2% from 2021 to 2022. Only five other states and Washington, D.C. experienced declines. In Texas and Florida, the second and third most populous states after California, personal income grew by 5% and 4.7%, respectively.