Cornucopia Fizzles in California

California has achieved a dubious distinction. According to Measure of America, a project of the Social Research Council, it is the most unequal state in the United States in terms of economic disparity and general well-being. Two areas in the state provide stark illustration of this division.

On the upscale side is Silicon Valley, the Mecca of high tech. Its residents have the highest level of well-being in the country. They earn twice the income of the average American, and have three times the graduate degrees. On the downscale side is California’s Central Valley, where average earnings are around the poverty level for a single parent family with two children. Forty percent of Central Valley residents are high school dropouts, a level far exceeding the national dropout rate.

Statewide, California has more “ultra-wealthy” people, a total of 12,560, than any other state in the union. Ultra wealthy is defined as having a net worth of more than $30 million. At the same time, California has the country’s highest poverty rate, with almost a quarter of its total population living below the poverty level. Between these extremes of wealth and want is a dwindling middle class.

California: Then…

This certainly wasn’t always the case. The California of 1965, a half-century ago, was the land where the middle-class American Dream was no dream at all, but an undeniable reality. Probably more than any other state at that time, it offered good jobs, upward mobility and an excellent quality of life for average citizens. (Take a look at California: Then & Now in this CAPS video.)

What has happened to the Golden State is most instructive when we hear the claims of cornucopian economists that population growth – and the more of it the better – always promotes prosperity. Commonly they and their acolytes endorse mass immigration as the means to keep population on an ever-rising trajectory. And immigrants, they inform us, are a very special kind of population – economic supermen with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal Americans.

One who sounds the cornucopian trumpet today is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who appears to be seeking the GOP presidential nomination. He maintains that immigration-propelled population is necessary to “grow” the economy. He praised immigrants for being “more fertile” than native-born citizens, and in one flight of rhetoric he hailed them as “engines of economic vitality.”

Since 1965, the year when the present wave of mass immigration began, California has definitely followed the pathway endorsed by the cornucopians. Her population then, 18.6 million, has more than doubled to the present level of around 38.8 million. Both in numbers and percentage of the population, California far exceeds all other states as a destination for immigrants. More than 10 million California residents are foreign-born, 27 percent of the total population. That percentage is nearly twice the national average.

…and Now

So if the cornucopians are right, then what went wrong in California? And why is the American Dream there becoming a dream detached from reality? The most reasonable explanation is that the cornucopian view isn’t correct, and in fact it is profoundly wrong.

Immigration enthusiasts, of course, will not take this conclusion lying down. They’re not people to let mere facts intrude on their fantasies. Most likely in this instance they would point to the wealth of Silicon Valley, and make their oft-repeated claim that immigrants created it and that our high-tech industry depends on a never-ending stream of foreign workers.

In truth, the role of immigrants in launching Silicon Valley is greatly overstated. Further, the notion that a shortage of qualified American workers requires importation of foreign tech workers is simply false. This is not to deny that immigrants have contributed significantly to California’s economy. Some immigration can indeed spur prosperity, but this is an argument for reasonable limits on numbers and intelligent selection of immigrants – not for a conucopian deluge.

An old saying is that as California goes, so goes the rest of the country. If the country allows mass immigration to continue, the rest of America tomorrow will resemble California today.