| Perhaps you can check the big warning sign on the page about the poverty number: > Estimates are not comparable to other geographic levels due to methodology differences that may exist between different data sources. Here is a better source with comparable numbers also by the bureau for 2021, same year we are talking about: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... 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%. Here is a nice SPM figure by states on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/123s1k3/oc... 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. |