California Learned During the Pandemic How to Rapidly Cut Poverty, But It Was a Temporary Fix

Volunteers at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank on September 15, 2023. California food banks are seeing increased demand as hunger and food insecurity levels rise across the state. Photo: Monica Schipper/Getty Images for Feeding America and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

The focus on the blistering effects of poverty in California can sometimes obscure a larger truth: Poverty rates overall have been declining, not growing — and for decades now.

“You do have to squint a little to see it,” said Caroline Danielson, interim vice president of research at the Public Policy Institute of California. “There’s a lot going on there, and it has not been just a steady decline.”