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California may never secede, or divide into different states, but it has effectively split into entities that could not be more different. On one side is the much-celebrated, post-industrial, coastal California, beneficiary of both the Tech Boom 2.0 and a relentlessly inflating property market. The other California, located in the state’s interior, is still tied to basic industries like homebuilding, manufacturing, energy and agriculture. It is populated largely by working- and middle-class people who, overall, earn roughly half that of those on the coast.

Long Beach isn’t alone. About 40,000 residents across Los Angeles County are on the waiting list to obtain Section 8 vouchers, which means many people wait 11 years for a chance at an affordable housing option, officials said during a public hearing this week.

“The American middle class is shrinking and the median income of those considered middle class is decreasing. “”Nationally, the median income of middle-income households decreased from $77,898 in 1999 to $72,919 in 2014, a loss of 6%,”” reports Pew Research Center.”

About 2.5 million people living close to the official poverty line left California for other states from 2005 through 2015, while 1.7 million people at that income level moved in from other states – for a net loss of 800,000. During the same period, the state experienced a net gain of about 20,000 residents earning at least five times the poverty rate – or $100,000 for a family of three.

The latest figures are a marked deceleration from the third quarter’s 3.5% pace, which had been the strongest reading in two years. They are, however, broadly in line with an economy that has, through ups and downs, settled at a roughly 2% growth pace since the recession ended.

Some of the diseases of poverty are individual, but some of them thrive in congregation (gang violence is the obvious example), and the only treatment for these is dilution. A 2000 Brookings study of Jack Kemp’s famous Moving to Opportunity program found “striking” evidence that poor families who moved out of poor communities with help from the Department of Housing and Urban Development earned more, enjoyed better health, and saw their children do better in school than did families who stayed behind.

San Diego County’s poverty rate of 13.8% vastly undercounts the number of families living in economic insecurity. Fully a third of all households headed by people under age 65 have incomes below the cost of living in the region. Based on the costs of basic family budget items, the Self-Sufficiency Standard indicates the yearly income families need just to get by. The basic budget starts at almost $28,000 a year for a single adult, which would require an hourly wage of at least $13.23 if working full-time all year long. The budget grows with family size and differs according to the ages of children in the family. Self-Sufficiency is the ability to afford the bare-bones costs of living without public or private assistance. The calculation of the standard includes only no-frills items like housing, food, transportation, child care, healthcare, and taxes.

Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in California, where the state government has all but declared war on single-family homes by banning new peripheral development, driving up house prices throughout metropolitan areas. Regulatory fees typically add upward of $50,000, two-and-a-half times the national average; new demands for “zero emissions” homes promise to boost this by an additional $25,000.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 48 states and the District of Columbia in the third quarter of 2016, according to statistics on the geographic breakout of GDP released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. . . . California saw a 3.3 percent growth rate, 16th lowest in the nation, tied with Alabama, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.

According to a landmark study for the Equality Opportunity Project, Stanford’s Raj Chetty and coauthors found that certain state and community colleges offer effective pathways to higher incomes for younger generations. . . Of the top ten colleges in the country with the best mobility rates, three are in California: top-ranked Cal State Los Angeles, Glendale Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.

The speech, at a meeting of the California Latino Economic Institute, served as a counter-step to Gov. Jerry Brown’s indictment of Trump in his State of the State address last week. While echoing Brown’s characterization of California as a “beacon of hope” for other states and countries, Villaraigosa lamented rising home prices, stagnant wages and a state poverty rate that ranks highest in the nation when adjusted for the cost of living. . . .“So we can’t be truly progressive unless all of us in California are progressing together … Economic inequality has grown because our policies have not kept pace with our changing economy.”

The report measures the “bare bones” cost of living — housing, food, transportation, health care, child care and taxes — to see what it takes for households to get by without public or private assistance. For a single adult living alone, that annual income is $27,942, or $13.23 per hour for a full-time worker. For a family with two adults, one preschooler and one infant, it’s $88,616.

“U.S. economic output decelerated in the final three months of 2016 to a 1.9% growth rate, returning after a brief spurt to the stubbornly lackluster pace that has prevailed through most of the current expansion and which President Donald Trump has pledged to double. Growth of gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the economy, exceeded the pace of growth in a slow first half of 2016, but marked a slowdown from the third quarter’s seasonally and inflation adjusted 3.5% growth rate. More broadly, it was in line with the 2% growth rates that have made this the slowest economic expansion in post World War II history.”

A study conducted by the JPMorgan Chase Institute found that roughly 4.2 percent of retirees have used the gig economy to earn money over the past three years, up 47-fold over the period. Moreover, the study, which used anonymous data from JP Morgan Chase customers to draw a wide sampling, found that seniors generated a larger segment of their income from the gig economy than any other group.

Labor shortages in the technology, health-care, and financial industries boosted wages for skilled workers. Minimum wage legislation increased compensation for unskilled workers across the District. One contact in the media and entertainment industry reported that some companies were postponing filling vacant positions in order to offset rising costs from minimum wage increases. . . Contacts in the hospitality and restaurant industries reported increasing the price of goods and services to offset rising labor costs.