For this week's special topics post, I wanted to comment on the most recent Public Policy Institute of California's (PPIC) survey results on the state of California, from May 2022 (link here). The PPIC does these every few months, and they provide deep insight into what Californians think about a range of issues, including recent policy proposals, news events, economic trends, and so on. They're really a great barometer of the current views of Californians.
This round of survey results focused on what Californians think about the state of the economy. "Jobs, economy, inflation" was the top concern among a plurality of respondents, as can most easily be seen in the survey report’s invaluable crosstabs (link here; there is a second set of crosstabs for likely voters here). The second-biggest issue is housing costs. In the Inland Empire, 35% of residents listed the economy as the #1 concern (more than any other major region in California) and another 21% listed either housing or homelessness.
In addition to region (Central Valley, IE, LA, Orange/San Diego, Bay Area), survey results are reported across other useful crosstabs like political party, congressional district (this is a relatively new addition), gender, race/ethnicity, income, and home ownership. For example, we learn from the crosstabs that concern about the economy varies somewhat by the educational attainment of the respondent: 31% of Californians with only a high school degree rank jobs/inflation as their top concern, while 23% of college graduates do. Housing costs/affordability and homelessness go in the other direction: only 19% of high school degree earners report it as their top concern, whereas 27% of college graduates do.
On inflation in particular (part of a later group of questions in the survey), three quarters of IE residents said that recent price increases have caused some kind of financial hardship, with half of those respondents saying that the nature of the hardship has been "serious". Presumably, most survey respondents are referring here to gas prices, although according to the language of the questionnaire (Q6: “have recent price increases caused…”), I suppose it could be referring to any price increase, including food or rent.
California gas prices have risen at a phenomenal rate in recent months. After declining during the pandemic and steadily rising through the rest of 2020 and 2021, prices had mostly leveled off – see the chart above. But the Russia-Ukraine war changed this relatively smooth time series, and prices spiked in March. After a brief decline, prices ascended through May. Since early-March alone, gas prices have risen over 50%. Especially with the long commute times in the IE, a 50% increase in gas prices easily makes a dent in some budgets. The IE is also the biggest supporter of Governor Newsom's proposed gas rebate (64% of IE “likely voter” residents favor it, more than in any other region).