October 4, 2025
California's poverty rate is once again the highest in the country, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows. What's more, that rate recently saw its first increase in more than a decade.
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California leads the nation in this poverty measure - and S.F.'s is even higher
California's poverty rate is once again the highest in the country, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows. What's more, that rate recently saw its first increase in more than a decade. And hyper-pricey San Francisco's figure is even higher than the state's.
An average of about 18% of Californians - nearly 7 million people - experienced poverty from 2022 to 2024, according to estimates from the Census Bureau's
Supplemental Poverty Estimate, or SPM. That was tied with Louisiana for the second-highest share in the U.S., which had an overall rate of 13%.
The city of San Francisco's rate was even higher, at roughly 20% in 2023, according to a Chronicle analysis of the most recent substate data. That was the ninth-highest share among California's counties, and the second-highest among counties with at least 500,000 people. Los Angeles County had the highest rate, at 25%.
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