By some estimates, California’s level of inequality compares with that of such global models as the Dominican Republic, Gambia and the Republic of the Congo

At the same time, the Golden State now suffers the highest level of poverty in the country — 23.5% compared to 16% nationally — worse than long-term hard luck cases like Mississippi. It is also now home to roughly one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, almost three times its proportion of the nation’s population. Like medieval serfs, increasing numbers of Californians are downwardly mobile, and doing worse than their parents: native born Latinos actually have shorter lifespans than their parents, according to one recent report. Nor are things expected to get better any time soon. According to a recent Hoover Institution survey, most Californians expect their incomes to stagnate in the coming six months, a sense widely shared among the young, whites, Latinos, females and the less educated.