Vanessa

“But the per capita increase in California’s general-fund spending is also huge over the past decade, because California’s population hasn’t increased very much since 2013.6 Back in 2013 it was 38.3 million, and in 2023 it was only up to 38.9 million, an increase of only 0.6 percent. Over the past three years, California’s population has actually dropped by nearly 600,000 residents since reaching a high of 39.5 million in 2020. Taking population into account, California’s spending in 2023 dollars has gone from $3,291 per person in 2013 to $5,800 per person in 2023, an increase of 76 percent. And it’s going up, just as the population continues to go down: the 2024–25 budget came in at nearly $300 billion. This dramatic growth in per-person spending corresponds directly to more government control of the economy in the form of more programs and more employees. They’ve doubled the budget, but is everything twice as good?”
― Steve Hilton, Califailure: Reversing the Ruin of America's Worst-Run State – California's Decline Under Gavin Newsom and the Path to Reform