Is it really affordable to Californians though? Or it is affordable only to the upper class there? Not everyone is making 200-300k a year.
If you look at the median household income pre-tax, CA is 84k while TX is 67k. Not that big a difference especially when you consider TX do not have income tax while CA does. Meanwhile everything in CA is nearly double the price. Is everything really affordable to the average Californians or it only affordable to the SWE circle?
Pretty disingenuous to use data for one side of the argument and a subjective "everything in CA is nearly double the price" for the other. From the same table you linked, the percentage of people living in poverty in Texas (14.2%) is higher than California (12.3%). If everything really is so much more unaffordable in CA than TX, why is that?
Relevant numbers for states can be found on page 77.
As for the "why"...
Officially, poverty level is counted by triple the cost of food compared to income. Of course, that is now obsolete since people need more than just food. They need housing, utilities, etc. Most of those are much higher in CA than TX.
That is why the census bureau has SPM which accounts for these needs. Based on the SPM calculated by the bureau, CA has higher poverty rate than TX, 13.2% compared to 10.4%.
Using the official, i.e. the food cost only, then CA is 11% while TX is 12.9%.
Up to you how you want to take it. I was wrong in saying "everything" is double the price so let me take that back. Only housing and utilities are double or more, everything else is still more expensive but perhaps not to the 200% depending on where you live or get them from.