Income gap growing in California’s poorest regions Director Ann Huff Stevens quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 2016
Where in California has the gap between rich and poor grown most
since the recession? The Bay Area, home of some of the most
expensive ZIP codes in the country, seems like a logical answer.
But according to research from the nonpartisan Public Policy
Institute of California, income inequality in the Bay Area has
worsened only marginally, at least compared with other parts of
the state. In 2007, Bay Area households at the top 10 percent of
incomes made about 10.6 times what households at the bottom 10
percent of incomes brought home. By 2014, they made about 11.6
times as much.
“When you’re talking incomes that low, you’re likely talking
about people who work in agriculture and who really have highly
variable incomes because they’re not at a traditional job,” said
Ann Stevens, director of the UC Davis Center for Poverty
Research. “Or they may be doing temporary work or field work, or
running a small agricultural business.”
