Poverty in California: A recent United Way study found that half of all California Latinos, and some 40% of African-Americans, have incomes below the cost of necessities (the “Real Cost Measure”)

Among non-citizens, 60% of households have incomes below the Real Cost Measure, a figure that stretches to 80% below among Latinos. Upward mobility is not particularly promising for the state’s majority Latino next generation. Not only are housing prices out of reach for all but a few, but the state’s public education system ranks 40th in the nation, behind New York, Texas and South Carolina. If California remains the technological leader, it is also becoming the harbinger of something else — a kind of feudal society divided by a rich elite and a larger poverty class, while the middle class either struggles or leaves town. Instead of a role model for the future, the Golden State seems likely to become a cross between Hawaii and Tijuana, a land for the aging rich and their servants.