Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Chris Nichols/POLITIFACT
Assemblyman Chad Mayes makes his statement about poverty in California
"If you look at the official poverty measure in California, we’re about average with the rest of the country," Mayes said. "But if you use the supplemental poverty measure, we are in the lead.
We have the highest poverty rate in the nation -- higher than New Mexico, higher than any of the southern states, Louisiana, Alabama, higher than Idaho."
We decided to fact-check whether the report Mayes cited really shows that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation.
Our researchDuring the same period,
California had the highest poverty rate, 20.6 percent, according to the census’ Supplemental Poverty Measure. That study does account for cost-of-living, including taxes, housing and medical costs, and is considered by researchers a more accurate reflection of poverty. For a two-adult, two-child family in California, the poverty threshold was an average of $30,000, depending on the region in the state, according to a 2014 analysis by Public Policy Institute of California.
Looking at state poverty rates, the second highest is Florida’s 19 percent, followed by New York’s and Louisiana’s shared 17.9 percent rate. The national average is 15.1 percent using the supplemental measure.
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/jan/25/politifact-california-has-nations-highest-poverty-/