California's population is increasing.

A

Aspiring Mogul

I'm interested in this because I've been thinking of moving to LA, for obvious reasons. The Golden State has been losing people in the last few years, because of its high taxes, but, now, it may be coming back, even though its taxes remain high.

And its economy is recovering, and I hear anecdotal evidence to that effect as well, so I'll be keeping an eye on this.
 
CA hasn't ever really lost people in the aggregate, at least not in the last century. People come and go, and there have certainly been periods where overall growth was very low, but the long term trend has always been growth.

The economy has been growing in recent years heavily driven by the tech industry, which is subsequently driving a lot of population growth primarily in the bay area. That's starting to spill over into things like construction, which was probably hit harder than any industry in the state during the downturn. Still, I wouldn't say the general state economy (in terms of jobs) is 'recovered' yet - it's really only just hitting where it was in 2008/9, which is a problem because the population continued to grow throughout the downturn so we still have a few years of catching up to do.

I've been in the bay area for the past 18 years or so, so I don't really know how things are currently in LA or socal in general, but around here things are getting a little nuts because of the tech industry. Cost of living is getting insane - and contrary to the popular narrative it has nothing to do with high taxes or businesses fleeing the state, quite the opposite in fact. There are too many people with too much money and not enough to spend it on - so prices are going up. For instance, Twitter's IPO alone created 1,600 new millionaires overnight - great if you work for twitter, not so much if you're looking for a house or apartment and competing with people who can easily pay over the asking price.

I'm actually moving out of state soon, and at times it's shocking how much less expensive it is to live elsewhere in the US.
 
As a general rule, places that are more expensive to live in also feature jobs that pay more. Most people who live in the sticks don't make shit.

I think you should live where you want to live, and you'll be fine.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
But I understand many people have been leaving because of the high taxes.
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I'm sure some people have, but more people are coming in than going out because there is still plenty of opportunity here. Honestly I've never really thought of the taxes here as particularly high - gas is noticeably more expensive in part due to high taxes, and cigarettes, but certainly not worth moving away over. All kinds of things vary widely from place to place though - for instance I'll be spending quite a bit less on rent when I move, but electricity & gas suddenly become a much bigger factor if you're in a state that has seasons, something I've never really had to worry about living along the west coast where the temps don't vary much.

Cracker Funk said:
As a general rule, places that are more expensive to live in also feature jobs that pay more. Most people who live in the sticks don't make shit.
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The ratio between cost of living and incomes varies widely though, and it's currently worse in CA than a lot of other states. This is an interesting example:

http://www.interest.com/mortgage/news/big-city-housing-less-affordable/

So they're just looking at affordability of housing, but it gives a good snapshot - unfortunately it's getting worse across the board, but more so in CA than elsewhere. 4 of the 13 'failing' grade cities (and 3 of the 5 "F" grades) are from CA, none of the 12 'passing' cities are. Even though there are generally higher median incomes in the CA cities, the property values have just outpaced them in recent years.

We're moving from SF to Philly, which is one of the 'passing' cities - although barely so (C-). But the median home price there is 1/3 of SF's, while the median income is 80% of SF - that makes for a massive difference in terms of how affordable it is. LA and San Diego have nearly the same median income as Philly, but median house prices are 40-50% higher - still a huge difference.

So I'd say it's worth considering if you're planning on moving to a big city in CA - you'll probably need to be making well above the median income to really be able to afford to live there. Otherwise you end up living well outside the city and making an hour+ commute each way every day, which is how a lot of people do it here.
 
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