With California’s economy on the rebound, the state’s voters are slightly more upbeat than voters nationwide about their potential for a prosperous future, but a sharp divide separates the optimism of upscale coastal regions from the anxiety of financially stressed inland areas, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.
Most voters in counties along the coast were hopeful about their personal finances in the next few years. But in the interior, mainly the Central Valley and Inland Empire, less than half were hopeful and most were at least somewhat anxious.
Optimism runs particularly strong in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the technology industry’s explosive growth has spun off enormous wealth. Despite the region’s much-discussed high cost of living, the share of people in the Bay Area who said they were “very hopeful” about their own economic futures was double what it was in the Central Valley.
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