<p>And where would that ratio be if not for the influx of young immigrant families contributing to California’s growth?</p>
<p>California is hardly the state in worst demographic shape. Check out what’s going to happen in Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, West Virginia, etc.</p>
<p>California actually has the sixth-youngest population in the United States. I’d be worried about lots of other places (Florida?!) before California.</p>
<p>“In the Silicon Valley area, they are lined up to buy those old people’s homes. I guess their homes are their retirement nest eggs.”</p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>My Dad sold his place in the San Fernando Valley, then serially bought and sold homes in Sonoma County, Napa County and outside Sacramento before moving to Tucson, each time buying lower and thereby tapping his equity in the house to help fund his retirement.</p>
<p>If he hadn’t passed he’d be well on his way to a double-wide in the Redneck Riviera by now.</p>
<p>Z-mom, I applaud your interest in demographics!!! Forbes has a great interactive map that shows migration between/among the ~3000 counties in the US for years 2005 - 2010 with income data for outbound, inbound and non-migrants You can see where people go and how that changes over the years:</p>
<p>From what I remember reading, while CA property tax rates are lower than average (not <em>extremely</em> low), the amount of property taxes paid by homeowners in CA is <em>higher</em> than average, due to the high cost of housing.</p>
<p>If you bought a house at those inflated bubble prices, yes, you’re paying more. If you bought a house when values were lower, you’re still paying taxes at the lower value, even after it’s gone up. My family bought our home in the Bay Area in 1986 for ~$80,000, and that’s still the value on which we pay taxes, even though it’s worth at least twice that or more today.</p>
<p>Basically, new residents are subsidizing old residents. It strikes me as rather unfair and broken.</p>
<p>One thing, though, with all of these predictions, I’d take them with a grain of salt. I mean, ten years ago, nobody would have thought that so many people would be moving to North Dakota, and it seems that CA has the same kind of potential oil thing going on there, as well. So…</p>
<p>It’s all interesting, and whatnot, but who really even knows what the future holds.</p>
<p>When the Second World War threatened humanity, millions of African-Americans moved to California’s great cities to work in war industries - erecting ships, riveting aircraft and welding tanks. Many stayed.<<</p>
<p>In between these two migrations there was another big influx to California - namely, in the 1930s a lot of folks from Oklahoma and northern Texas fleeing the Dust Bowl moved in. Nativism reared its ugly head then too. But like the others they stayed and helped build the state into something stronger.</p>
<p>"From what I remember reading, while CA property tax rates are lower than average (not <em>extremely</em> low), the amount of property taxes paid by homeowners in CA is <em>higher</em> than average, due to the high cost of housing. "</p>
<p>Is there an arbitration process for tax appraisal for people who bought it at the top in 2005 and have lost value?</p>
<p>polar,
I think the idea was to prevent older homeowners on fixed incomes from being forced to sell their homes, due to skyrocketing home value increases and corresponding property tax rate increases. It seemed fair at the time to the older owners, who were not the ones driving up the prices.</p>
<p>I have heard/read that the amount the government pays out in pensions to retired government employess is a significant part of the budget problem in California.</p>
<p>Polarscribe, in parts of Manhattan, it’s even worse with rent control Not only are new resident subsidizing old, no one moves. If grandma dies, I swear, family members would pull a Norman Bates on the poor old woman to keep that place. My Manhattanite brother and SIL will never leave that apartment of his except feet first, horizontally. And, it’s an old story that apartment hunting often involves searching through the obituary listings. </p>
<p>It’ll take a some time to see what this new Prop. will do. A few years back, there wasn’t a thing I could pick up about California’s financial situation that wasn’t full of gloom and doom. So now things are looking better, economically? That’s good. Will this Proposition 30 chase out the high income folks to the point that the state loses out even getting the majority of them that are not at the higher levels and are stuck in state to earn those big bucks? Time will tell. </p>
<p>The nation’s taxes for the highest earners are taking effect this year, and it will be interesting how this pans out. Will the majority of those top wage earners who are really at the bottom of the range affected take measures so that it hurts the economy more than helps it? What would be the effect of a large scale tightening of the belf of that income group? How much do they really affect the rest of the country?</p>
<p>This issue is going to bankrupt us in illinois. The governor tried to get some help on this this year with a ballot measure, but it was written in such a confusing way, it was difficult to know WHAT you were voting for.</p>
<p>And Illinois is NO California. People come her for a few things, not the myriad reasons they head out west.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap – where do you live? Bay Area housing prices and San Diego prices seem to be rising rapidly. Just sold a house in the Bay Area, and debating whether to sell or buy my sister’s share of a condo in San Diego. While we’ve been debating, property values have increased significantly in this development.</p>
<p>And yes, if your property decreases in value, you can get it reassessed and lower your property tax in California if you bought at the peak. We did that back in the 90’s when real estate slumped.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse – I agree. And, it is aggravating to read how some high level UC employees make more in retirement than they ever did when working, except for perhaps their very last year of employment. Good grief. What a gravy train.</p>
<p>Still, California is a very attractive place, and I do hope to move back to retire there.</p>
<p>Pensions are underfunded by 30% in California. The pension liabilities are staggering in many places and cptofthehouse has it exactly right. Also the costs of medical coverage for retirees. Here, a sanitation worker can retire with 20 years on the job and receive lifetime medical as well as a pension. There is no age requirement. My husband’s BIL retired at 42.</p>
<p>Also, tax assessments can and do go down when house prices go down. Proposition 13 does cap tax assessments at P * 1.02^N, where P = purchase price and N = number of years since purchase. So those who bought at the top may not benefit (or benefit less) from the Proposition 13 tax assessment cap.</p>
<p>(Of course, whether this is a good thing or not can be endlessly debated.)</p>
<p>Not even that, it seems. California’s politicians are beholden to its government worker unions, so in bankruptcy they try to shaft bondholders and leave pensions untouched. Perhaps when much of California is shut out of the bond market its congressional representatives will beg for a federal bailout.</p>