California looks average on paper. The official federal poverty measure, which compares income against a single national threshold, puts the state’s poverty rate right at the national average. But the Census Bureau keeps a second yardstick, the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which accounts for what housing actually costs where people live, counts benefits like CalFresh and housing aid, and subtracts taxes, medical bills and work expenses. By that measure, 17.8 percent of Californians were in poverty over the 2023-to-2025 period — second only to Louisiana.
A new analysis from The Pew Charitable Trusts, published September 29, says rent is why the two numbers diverge. If California’s rents fell to the national average, the state’s poverty rate would drop by about 30 percent, and its child poverty rate would fall by about 36 percent.
The analysis also traces where anti-poverty help goes. CalFresh, California’s food benefit, grew substantially between 1989 and 2023 — but rising rents absorbed 78 percent of that increase. The help went in one pocket and out the other.
“Anti-poverty programs will be much more effective if we address people’s expenses, and rent is the number-one line item for most Americans,” said Alex Horowitz, a Pew housing researcher and co-author of the analysis.
Who pays that rent isn’t evenly spread. Fewer than four in ten Black California households own their homes, meaning most rent. Nationally, more than half of Black renter households spend over 30 percent of their income on housing — the Census Bureau’s threshold for being cost-burdened. In Los Angeles County, a UCLA study found Black renters carry the highest rent-burden rate of any group. The cost of greater Los Angeles has also pushed many families to more affordable neighboring cities like Lancaster and Palmdale in the Antelope Valley, and to Kern County.
Here’s what the gap looks like on the ground: the typical rent in Los Angeles runs about $2,650 a month, while the typical asking rent nationally was $1,962.
Pew points to places where rents actually fell. In Austin and Minneapolis, inflation-adjusted rents dropped by roughly a fifth after those cities changed zoning codes, building codes and permitting to allow more construction. The analysis doesn’t single out specific California laws; it credits those general categories of reform in the cities it studied.
If your rent went up this year, Observed wants to hear from you — how much it went up, and where you live. That’s the story we’re following.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.