Celebrity endorsements aside, there’s an increasingly pervasive feeling among those of us who actually live here that the California dream is just harder than it used to be. A recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found that only 17 percent of Californians believe the state’s current generation is doing better than previous ones. More than 50 percent thought younger Californians were doing worse.
They’re not wrong.
Over the past four decades, California middle-class incomes have stagnated: The median California family is making only marginally more now than they were in 1980. More than half of Californians born that year made less than their parents did by age 30.
That’s a problem because at the same time, the state’s cost of living has exploded. A house that 50 years ago cost about three times a younger California household’s salary now costs seven times what a younger household earns.
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