California once symbolized prosperity. It was the shining city on a hill of American success—beautiful beaches, booming business, endless opportunity.
Families could thrive, workers could buy homes, and the future felt limitless under the California sun.
Then the democrats communist/globalist crime syndicate took hold.
To wit:
– [s]ky-high taxes,
– open-border policies,
– bloated entitlement programs, and
– a government utterly allergic to fiscal restraint.
Thus the “Golden State” has been transformed into something unrecognizable. And this is not an exaggeration. Consider this:
One major California region now says you are
“low income” even if you are earning a six-figure salary.
Sound nuts? It is. Welcome to the Bay Area—where policy dreams meet real-world nightmares.
California’s liberal machine has managed the seemingly impossible:
[Make] upper-middle-class earners qualify for poverty programs. The 2025 income thresholds released by the California Department of Housing and Community Development are jaw-dropping and perfectly emblematic of a collapsing system.
From The Post Millennial:
Santa Clara County now has the highest low-income threshold for a single-person household at $111,700. The amount is a $33,150 increase since 2020.
In other words, you could be making well over $100K on your own, and still be officially considered “low income.” And that’s not a fluke—it is a trend. San Mateo, Marin, and San Francisco counties have near-identical thresholds, all sitting above $109,000 for individuals.
But this is not only about singles. Bay Area families are caught in the same downward spiral. A household of four in Santa Clara County earning up to $159,000 also qualifies as low income. In San Francisco and San Mateo, make that $156,650.
In 2025, the median price of a home in the Bay Area sits at $1.4 million—and it is climbing. That number spiked 12% just last month, according to the California Association of Realtors. And forget trying to build your own:
– environmental hurdles,
– government bottlenecks, and
– restrictive zoning laws choke the supply at every turn.
The housing crisis is not about scarcity—it is about political choices. The people who govern this state have constructed a labyrinth of contradictions:
– they promote affordability while blocking housing;
– they tax heavily and spend freely, yet basic services crumble; and
– now they’ve redefined “poverty” to include six-figure incomes.
California ranks poorly—an F, in fact—for housing affordability. But instead of clearing the path for development or lowering tax burdens, policymakers respond by:
– expanding subsidies,
– adding guidelines, and
– doubling down on the red tape that created the problem to begin with.
The brutal irony: the very people who built California—middle-class Americans—are the ones being driven out. Teachers, firefighters, truck drivers, and retired veterans cannot make ends meet, while tech executives and bureaucrats call the shots from their rent-protected luxury lofts.
The state’s progressive elite—those with Ivy League degrees, remote jobs, and political connections—have insulated themselves from the mess they created. They define equity initiatives, fund new agencies, and celebrate with ribbon-cuttings for housing projects that yield a handful of units after five years and millions spent.
And what does the working public get?
More taxes. More forms.
More “help” that never really helps.
This system has not been broken by accident. It was designed this way—by leaders who genuinely believe bureaucracy and spending can solve the problems they cause. And without a major course correction:
[T]he Bay Area’s economic gravity is unsustainable.
When $159,000 is not enough to escape poverty:
[T]he bottom is bound to fall out.
Simply put:
[A] society that redefines wealth
as poverty is not evolving. It is imploding.
