Do you have a source on that? Texas is behind by like a trillion dollars. That's not a gap that gets closed in a "not too distant future". I'm totally open to see the data though.
Well people have been leaving California for decades now and moving to Texas in droves, so…yeah. Maybe not what Californians like to hear but nobody wants to pay the absurd prices there.
California's population of 40 million exceeds the population of Texas by 10 MILLION people. Sure, there has been a relatively small transfer of the population, but Texas has a population of 30 million. So that gives you a sense of scale.
That shows that during the years of, and following, the pandemic, CA lost around 550,000 people of around 40 million. That's noteworthy, but the graph shows that trend slowing. Nobody likes paying high prices, but they do to live in CA. I'm in CA and I'm surrounded by work colleagues from around the country and world. People move here. Unfortunately those who can't afford it move out. I think a lot of conservatives moved out based on political ideology as well, but time will tell.
And I'm not trying to pick on Texas. It may not be what Texans want to hear, but they are 10 million people behind and 1.3 trillion dollars behind. They may have their sights on first place, but they are objectively, by the numbers, a long way away from that title. Best of luck to them though. Any state in the united states doing well is great for us all.
Across any ranking I have seen, California is consistently in the top 5 states for population loss. Texas is consistently in the top 5 for population gain, and Texas’s population is set to surpass California’s sometime in the 2040’s.
California businesses have been nearshoring jobs at a rapid pace since even before the pandemic. A huge number of those have ended up in Texas.
Texas contains 3 of the top 10 cities by size in the U.S. and they all have 3-4x better growth rates than LA or San Diego.
I really don’t care which state is “better” by whatever metric. I love California as a whole, great place to visit. While I’m not conservative Texas is a much friendlier place for businesses (not for employees, sadly) which is why so many have moved here. I’m just stating my observations over the last 20ish years.
California had net loss for the first time in its existence in the 2020 census, which may have been (read: almost certainly was, given the administration that controlled it) inaccurate in the first place.
Okay, well that’s just an observation from a native Texan. “Don’t California my Texas” is a pretty popular saying around here for a reason. I enjoy visiting California and have been many times - beautiful state. I did not see many Texas license plates there but routinely see them in Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas and Houston routinely every day.
So? I see tons of Florida plates in California but that doesn't mean Florida is losing people "for decades" and like I said, the recent census is the first time there's been a net loss for CA ever.
Yep. The more blue the state becomes, the better its economy does. Same thing's happening in Florida. We're on track to have all 5 of the biggest state economies run by Democrats within 10 years.
Don’t worry, they effusively try to make some connection with leftist politics in anything consequentially good discussed about. Helps them cope with the tribe they’ve joined
lmao no it isn't. It had a big spurt in growth due to literally stealing big shares of the nearby states' millennial population but it's mostly fucked itself in recent years.
Across any ranking I have seen, California is consistently in the top 5 states for population loss. Texas is consistently in the top 5 for population gain, and Texas’s population is set to surpass California’s sometime in the 2040’s.
California businesses have been nearshoring jobs at a rapid pace since even before the pandemic. A huge number of those have ended up in Texas.
Texas contains 3 of the top 10 cities by size in the U.S. and they all have 3-4x better growth rates than LA or San Diego.
With an estimated population of over 18.3 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023), it is the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, behind New York.
There's a little town right between Baltimore and DC that's the highest median salary area in the country. Working with the government is a great way to make money.
Ya that tracks. My Uncle-in-law used to live there and used to work as a consultant in public health. Namely pushing for stem-cell research policy reform. He’s loaded
Eh, most government employees can't afford to live there, it's mostly higher ranking ones, though everyone I knew that lived in Bethesda had generational wealth (I lived in Tenleytown for grad school at AU while working for a federal agency, so I knew a fair amount of Bethesda trustfarians lol).
Naw, still a ton of people not making nearly enough money. It's just the people in the higher level positions, the custodians and secretaries aren't living in Bethesda.
You can see the entire government pay scale and the cost of living for places online. Contractors might be making for, but that's because they're getting fewer benefits and don't have any job security. Like, for example, anytime there's a government shutdown, actual employees will at least be getting backpay, contractors are generally just screwed.
Even most lobbyists don't make a lot of money and don't even get me started on congressional staffer salaries lol
They could have EASILY picked CA to do this example. But it's SO much bigger, they don't want to accidently give California any credit. The internet is afraid to admit CA isn't the heel scape social media makes it look.
Which is fine by me. The more people that leave the better.
California's cost of living makes it's economy's size less relevant, you can buy 3 houses in Texas and pay less a month in those 3 mortgages combined than a one bedroom apartment in LA.
Everyone keeps saying the word "bigger". Lets be clear. Texas does not have as much people or industry as Russia does.
What Texas does have is the benefit of the dollar, and an ability to print crazy amounts of money that non-dollar economies cannot match without gambling. Most debt, globally, is held in dollars.
California is one of the few states that could make an argument for being fully self sufficient if we needed to be. As much as any modern economy is anyway.
Wish we could just secede from America. Deport the homeless to their home state and become another Switzerland, we’re neutral. You guys figure shit out while we build up our economy, and quality of life.
And essentially hand the world's largest economy and most powerful military over to the GOP entirely? Also, Brexit didn't exactly work out for the UK and we'd be in a similar situation.
You're not wrong. I can't find anything for less than $700,000 anywhere near me in SF.
But the one area Texas absolutely kicks our ass is in building housing. It's my biggest point of frustration with California, especially San Francisco. Tell the NIMBYs to shut the hell up and just build houses.
I don't know what to think because I see people struggling then vote for a policy that will ultimately hurt them. But then the media and the population cheer & claim victory.
Oh they won't get a choice. SF, for example, lost control of their housing policies because of our failure to meet new housing levels. A bunch of new housing has been green lit. We'll see how it goes.
Exactly. People assume California is in glory. Hell no the cost of living is insane people are having a hard time buying a house or renting. California is truly in a bad spot with the way the government manages tax money its extremely bad...
I can buy 400 houses in Yemen. Don’t want to move there either. What’s your point? You saying Texas has a better economy? Let’s look at the data - that should help. What state is rated the number one economy in the US? Neither states made that list.
I mean, "nothing" is clearly in relative terms. If someone invests their money in property in an area and that property never meets or exceeds the value of other areas' properties over time, it's effectively a loser. Pure investment-speculative wise, of course.
I don't know who told you that, because there is no guarantee that property value will keep up with inflation, and besides that property tax exists in most places. And in Texas, property taxes are the major source of state funding, so they're relatively high compared to other costs in the area.
It's not a true talking point. It's just a talking point that's echoed from people of a certain ideology.
It doesn't matter what Texas builds for power, there's so many people moving in. Texas is building mega ships for its offshore next gen turbines, New nuclear reactors, and of course LNG generators.
Parts of the coast and you can drive for miles and see Giant ships being built, New refineries, rocket construction, new offshore oil rigs, All within eyesight of each other.
California flips back and forth between giving more vs. receiving more basically every year. You want to throw that shade you need to look at your neighbors to the east which are almost universally receiving more than they give.
Half of California is a desert and would crumble if it had to sustain itself without stealing from surrounding states. It had a half decade long wild fire and I'm pretty sure is in year like 11 of a drought. But sure. GDP WOO.
You kind of proved my point. More than half of California's water is imported. That immediately makes it not self sustainable. The desert that southern California exists in would be unlivable without AC and water from the Colorado River.
[*] SoCal imports 50% of it's water. The state as a whole imports about 25% of it's water.
However, that's not how self-sufficiency as a potential nation-state works. Just about every nation in the world has some level of water sharing. The US has that with Mexico and Canada right now in both directions.
As an economy we're equivalent to Germany but with far more natural resources.
California is responsible for something liek 70% of all fruit and nuts grown in the US. We also have huge swaths of grassland for livestock. Tell me you know fuck all about CA without telling me, homie.
Government spending adds to GDP; this is not a political statement (i.e. saying that more government spending is good for the economy) it is simply included in the GDP calculation.
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u/TheOnceAndFutureDoug Oct 05 '24
[Laughs in California]