Californians may have just voted overwhelmingly for more of the same — boosting Democratic majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and replacing one Democratic governor with another for the first time since the 1880’s — but many are still eager for major changes to state policy. And a majority are downright pessimistic about California’s future.
Those results, which would seem at odds with recent indicators that paint a sunny macroeconomic picture for the state, come via a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California.
Half of all respondents, and 60 percent of respondents identified as likely voters, predicted that children growing up today in California will face a bleaker financial future than their parents. That impending decline could arrive sooner than we think. Asked if California should expect an economic downturn in the next year, respondents were split. And like the state’s economic growth, that optimism was not evenly distributed: majorities of coastal city residents foresee good times ahead, while pessimism clustered in the Inland Empire and Central Valley.
The number of Californians who believe “the good times might be over” was “decidedly different than even a few weeks before the election,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the institute.
The rising pessimism could be the result of a waning stock market or news of the county’s still-unresolved trade war. But a general sense of economic anxiety is also in keeping with a long-term trend since the last decade’s Great Recession, he said.
“We’re at this point in the recovery which should have given people more of a sense of economic security and there are a lot of people who feel insecure,” said Baldassare.
Evidently: 67 percent of respondents said that the state was divided into haves and have-nots — and 45 percent considered themselves have-nots.
Among them, African Americans, Latinos, people without any college education, non-citizens and renters were disproportionately represented. Many of those groups are also more likely to be non-voters. Sure enough, 59 percent of those not registered to vote considered themselves on the losing end of the state’s economic fortunes, compared to only 36 percent of likely voters.
That grim economic assessment seems to have translated into higher support for expanded social programs. Fifty-seven percent of adults said they want lawmakers to spend some of the state’s multi-billion dollar budget surplus on increasing education, health and human service funding. One in six wanted universal healthcare to be a “high” or “very high” policy priority for incoming state lawmakers. A majority said the same of tuition-free community college.
But only 48 percent said there should be such focus on statewide universal pre-school, one of Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom’s top priorities.
CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
This article appears in The Housing Games.
Sorry, but CALmatters dot org isn’t worth shit if this article represents their collective intelligence. Maybe the economic pessimism is because of ALL OF HISTORY TO THE PRESENT DAY. I feel all caps are necessary, because who the hell reaches middle age in this country without seeing the same pattern in politics recycle over and over? Every economic surge has ALWAYS resulted in downturn, to the point that today’s prosperity is down several rungs on the ladder compared to the surge before, over and over, and with that in mind there’s ZERO evidence of stability, ZERO evidence that today’s children will be as secure as their parents, ZERO evidence that the trend will reverse, and ZERO evidence that either the Democratic or Republican parties are working to change that. In fact, the Democrat and Republican big wigs are stuffin their pockets, AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT! WTF, JOURNALISTS! Talk to the people like one of us, not like some stupid computer set up to soft talk us stupid. “The people are uncertain…” Bullshit! People have known what to expect for a long time.
I dug into it, the survey is fluff PR spun with false optimism. CALmatters writes “Those results, which would seem at odds with recentindicatorsthat paint a sunny macroeconomic picture for the state,”
Those results match every survey ever taken. So in truth the “indicators that paint a sunny picture” are wrong. Why isn’t this even mentioned? How shortsighted do they think we are? How short sighted would political big wigs like us to be? (very!) And what, specifically, did the “rigorous” survey ask participants? No info on that! CALmatters and the PPIC are government PR, who themselves paint a big question mark over a painfully obvious situation. The more I read, the more I can’t help but shake my head at any media person who would reprint this without pointing out obvious discrepencies. I could disect this report and those linked for pages. Boo to them.
Quick Plain English:
Economic charts have been a downward slope for 60+ years. Survey results have been the same for 60+ years.
CALmatters and PPIC are in no position to tell the public why we responded to the survey as we have. Yet they do. They present over three pages describing the accuracy of their survey (in this case less than 2,000 people surveyed) and hyping its rigor. Yet instead of asking us why we respond as we do, they effectively provide the answer for us, and in a manner that says we appear to be unreasonably pessimistic considering the current moment of THEIR economic chart (still a downward slope for 60+ years).
Note the plug for the governor. Note CALmatters and PPIC present racial disparity charts, fueling a race divide despite everybody acknowledging an income divide across the entire population. There’s plenty more. This survey is PR fluff intended to make people seem unreasonably wary of their elected officials. It’s even in their headlines.