California's poor flock to Texas as West Coast homes and jobs fall out of reach

By Julieta Chiquillo of The Dallas Morning News. Excerpts:

"Skyrocketing home prices and fierce competition for jobs in the Golden State are prodding poor families to pack up and head to Texas. Our state was the top destination for low-income residents leaving California between 2005 and 2015, according to a recent data analysis by the Sacramento Bee.

In that time period, about 293,000 impoverished people left California for Texas and nearly half that figure moved into California from our state, for a net loss of 156,000 people, the Bee reported.

The fact that people are moving in large numbers to Texas is an indicator that the state has economic growth and opportunity, said state demographer Lloyd Potter."

"But Texas has become a more attractive choice for tens of thousands of poor Californians. Gaines points to jobs and housing as reasons.

"Texas is simply — overall, in any measure — a much lower cost-of-living state," the economist said.

Affordable homes are in short supply in both Texas and California, but we fare better than our friends on the West Coast, according to an analysis of 2015 data by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Texas has 51 affordable and available rental units for every 100 households that are making half of the area median income or less. That's four units below the U.S. number. Meanwhile, California has 30 units for every 100 households in that income range.

When it comes to housing availability for the extremely poor, we still do better than California. Texas has 29 affordable and available rentals for every 100 families making 30 percent or less of the area median income. California has 21."

California rents

Here are the median rents for a one-bedroom apartment in the state’s largest metro areas in January 2017.

Los Angeles

$1,850

San Francisco

$2,550

San Diego

$1,670

Riverside

$1,077

Sacramento

$1,100

SOURCE: Zillow

Texas rents

Here are the median rents for a one-bedroom apartment in the state’s largest metro areas in January 2017.

Dallas-Ft. Worth

$1,125

Houston

$1,067

San Antonio

$800

Austin

$1,029

El Paso

$563

Data for McAllen-Mission, the state’s fifth largest metro area, wasn’t available.

SOURCE: Zillow

 

"The jobs with the biggest net loss of California workers to other states were cashiers, cooks, truck drivers, material movers, retail sales reps and customer service reps, according to the Bee's analysis.
Even San Francisco, the state's best employment market, is getting tens of applicants for cashier and restaurant jobs, the newspaper reported.

Those Californians could find many openings here, according to 2014-24 projections from the Texas Workforce Commission. All the occupations mentioned above are among a list of 25 predicted to add the most jobs over the decade."