Hello and welcome to the Projected Podcast. I'm your host Anne-Marie Hilton. Project Good is a social impact podcast interviewing experts and advocates about the pressing problems that we face globally and hearing how they suggest we move forward in the future. The Project Good Podcast is brought to you by Project Good Work. The goal of this podcast is to inspire people and organizations to develop a mindset that can move others to positive action regarding the complex social issues facing people and the planet. For January, we're focusing on poverty in the future. The United States is considered the richest country in the world and yet 37.9 million of its residents live in poverty. Income inequality in the United States is still considered to be growing with the gap between the wealthy and the middle class widening over the past few decades. Inequality is also increasing geographically with income disparities growing between different regions of the US. For example, 31.1% of California residents or poor or near poor in early 2023. Those living in poverty often go hungry or receive poor nutrition, miss out on good education and are put at high risk for disease. Poor families tend to have low intakes of fruits and vegetables and higher intakes of junk food. They also tend to suffer more from cancer, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. The economic disparities are a result of historic racial segregation, governmental policies, a stagnation in minimum wage, outsourcing, globalization, changes in technology, and the waning power of labor unions. Most concerning is the shrinking middle class, which has left many people wondering if America still is the land of opportunity. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Devin Gray, the president of End Poverty in California or EPIC. EPIC aims to end poverty in California by elevating the voices of people experiencing it, creating and implementing bold policies rooted in their needs and advancing a state agenda focused on equal opportunity for all. Prior to joining EPIC, Devin was a director with Evergreen Strategy, where he advised gun violence prevention organizations on policy and strategy. Devin previously served in the Newsome Administration as special advisor to the Governor's Chief of Staff and is alumni of the national and statewide political campaigns. He's a graduate of Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Education and lives in Orange County where he serves as a delicate to the California Democratic Party. Let's get into the interview. Over 4.1 million Californians, including one in 10 people and one in 10 children face hunger. An estimated 171,000 Californians were experiencing hopelessness as early as 2022. One 186 billionaires live in California, more than any other state in the U.S. and more than any other country outside of the U.S. and China. California is the fifth largest economy in the world when measuring GDP, yet nearly three out of 10 Californians are living below or near the poverty line. The gap between high and low income families in California is among the largest in the nation, exceeding all but three states in 2021. Devin Gray, who leads the organization EPIC, is focusing its efforts to help change the narrative about poverty from one based on lies and stereotypes to an authentic narrative based on strengths, assets, and lived experiences of individuals and communities. Welcome, Devin. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Yes, I'm excited about this conversation. I think it's the perfect conversation starting in New Year, especially after an election year here in the U.S., where I believe this topic was a key driving factor that maybe pushed the results for where they went. I think this is extremely timely and I especially wanted to quote-unquote look into the crystal ball of where we're going in the U.S. I think a lot of people are sitting on the edge of their seats here in the U.S., but I think globally they want to see where is the U.S., what is the U.S. thinking? That's why I'm really excited about the conversation because I think it is a good way to set us up for, I guess you could say, even the next four years. Before we get into the deep part of the interview, I always like to have a little bit of a fun question or something inquisitive to find out the heart of the person I'm interviewing. I was looking into your background a little bit, and so it seems that you, as a young person, and this is just something, of course, I'm not in your mind, really already knew what they wanted. You jumped in already studying political science and public policy, so I guess what drove you to become involved in this field when you were younger? I think it's a really good question, and sometimes these things make sense only in hindsight, but I really do think that growing up in Orange County, a place that has tremendous inequality, in many ways, I think is a microcosm for the state and for the country where you have such abundance but so unevenly distributed in such deep poverty, often just miles away from extravagant wealth, really put a seed into my head in an early age to ask questions around why government worked well for some people and not for others, and that spurred an interest in politics and public policy. It led to me studying political science and undergrad. It led to me going to law school, I ultimately never practiced law formally, and then into political campaigns and into government and now into the advocacy world, but I really do think that just seeing how government worked so well for some and how government invested in value in certain communities and not others was a very defining experience for me, and I think also recognizing that those policy choices around which communities are invested in and which aren't led to very real outcomes for the kids that I went to school with, I went to predominantly low-income public schools throughout my life, two-thirds of my classmates were Latino generally, in a very diverse part of Orange County, but again, you could see how a ceiling was placed on so many kids that I grew up with, who experienced poverty, and obviously that tracked with racial lines, with status of their parents in terms of immigration as well, and how kids who grew up in the gated communities on the other side of town had a real floor where no matter how many mistakes that they made or how well they did in school, there was always going to be a safe net from them that came in the form of familial wealth that guaranteed that no matter what they did, they were always going to be okay. So I think that really shaped my worldview in a pretty profound way and led to the career choices that I've made. Wow, so I would say you had a lived experience and being able then to kind of, I guess, be an observer even though you were also intimately involved in the experience, and to then push yourself so much to want to be a change maker. Yeah, I would say so, yeah. Yeah, I think that I think it's well said. And so I guess one of the things, obviously right now, I guess there's mixed feelings, right? So looking from, I'm going to go from kind of a global perspective and then jump into the U.S. So from a global perspective, the other countries that are maybe not the U.S. and don't have such a strong GDP, look at the U.S. as I would say in some ways, why are those people always whining? Yeah. Right, so they're, I think sometimes they would say they don't know what real struggle is. So then when we're talking about poverty in the U.S., I think it's a sensitive topic when it comes out from a global perspective. But then to know that there is, I guess you would say there's two types of poverty, right? There's kind of a relative poverty. And then there's the, I guess, a poverty that we all know. When we see the sad cases as a famine, where either from political reasons or there hasn't been rain for years or something like that and the people are starving to death, right? So when we come in to define what is, I guess, what does poverty really look like in the U.S. and what does it look like since you specifically reside in California? Yeah, I think it's a really good question because sort of to your point, there are so many different ways for us to measure poverty. And even within the U.S., and even within California, advocates and folks in government rely on a range of metrics. But I think simply put, I define poverty along two main verticals. The first is just simply not having enough consistent income to meet the basic costs of daily life. And that is, I think, a good explanation as to why in some countries that might have lower GDP and maybe lower median income, the cost of living is such that folks are able to live comfortably and meet their basic needs. And you see that yielding things like disparate life expectancies where folks in the U.S. who were lower income often have lower life expectancies than folks in middle income countries, just by virtue of the fact that people here struggle to meet basic needs because things are pretty expensive, relatively speaking. And then the second vertical, and I think maybe even the more interesting one, is not having enough wealth or assets to be able to achieve real economic security such that you can exercise real choice in the economy and or protect it against economic catastrophe. And the caveat that would add to that is when we're thinking about the guarantees that you have in the economy that the government can provide, well, in the U.S., our biggest safety net is oftentimes our wealth, which is so often tied up into property ownership. But in other countries that, again, might have lower per capita GDP, there's much more robust safety net. And there is a protection against poverty from that because their governments have made choices to protect people against economic catastrophe by virtue of a robust public housing network or cash subsidies that protect people if they lose their jobs. So I think when we talk about wealth and assets, it's not just about your equity in your home or the amount of money in your 401(k), it's also what are the safety nets that the government's going to provide for you to make sure that you don't fall below a certain living standard? Yes. And so I guess, and this, I guess, is the thing that was kind of on the election. You know, government versus more government versus less government kind of. And so in, I guess, the situation that we are in, and I think, you know, obviously one of the biggest effects that, you know, not only hit here, but globally, is that we, the pandemic, whether people want to, you know, believe it or not, it has extreme aftershocks still. And so, you know, we're now five years out from 2020, and we're still experiencing. And I think we expected, unless we were totally clueless, that there were going to be consequences for having that experience. That's what I'll just call it experience. And so now we find ourselves in, I don't know if this was, I'm sure from if I was an economist, this was probably one of the, you know, scenarios that were looked at that could have played out. And so now are we in a scenario that you think is going to be possibly getting worse? I think so by virtue of, I think the policy choices that we're going to be seeing over the next couple of months, if not weeks. And I look to the new Congress that was sworn in today and the president that's going to be sworn in in a few weeks. And we know what the priorities are going to be for Republicans in Washington. It's basically going to be to continue to redirect wealth away from middle class and towards the 1%. And the chief priority for Congress going into this year is going to be the renewal of the Trump tax cuts, which took place in 2017, which are set to expire in 2026 and next year, and it's going to be a priority for them to renew it for another 10 years. And for folks who don't know that the tax cuts that took place back in 2017 essentially were a massive cut on households making over $400,000 a year and a big reduction of the corporate tax rate down to a flat rate of 21%. And what's the shame about it all is that it's going to grow or deficit by over $4.5 trillion. And instead of investing in families through an expanded child tax credit or in low wage workers through the earned income tax credit or in child care subsidies to help families, we're going to see the trends of wealth being directed away from middle class and towards the top end continue in a more fervent pace. So I think that when we're for contemplating the results of the election and the economic insecurity that people are feeling, which I think is justified because we have eyes and ears and we know the statistics, we know that poverty is still unacceptably high. I think the sad irony is that the election outcomes, which I think many correctly viewed as a rebuke of the status quo are probably going to exacerbate the challenges even further. It's depressing, sorry, but we've got to be sober about what we're up against there, right? And I think it calls upon us to tell a better story about what's happening in the economy, because I think working families are being robbed blind at the moment. And if we're not telling an effective story, it allows space for demagoguery to have the blame be shifted towards immigrant, towards poor people, towards communities of color, in a way that we've seen obviously weaponized for many decades, if not centuries now, but it's a shame that we've not been able to correctly identify the villains in the story. Yes. And I guess, you know, I'll just jump to the thing that everybody always wants. What, I guess, if you were going to give a list of what would you say are maybe top solutions that we could work towards? Yeah, absolutely. I think the problem requires us to identify a lot of the causes of poverty, which I think in California are really not terribly different than the rest of the country. The first is people are feeling pinched economically because of exorbitant housing costs, right? In California, that's particularly true. And it's the reason why California, when adjusting for cost of living, has the highest rate of poverty of end state. It's because we don't build nearly enough affordable housing. We frankly don't build enough housing at all income levels. And one of the things that I was really pleased that the Harris campaign, at least going to the November election was discussing, was a massive expansion of our housing supply to ultimately drive down costs and make homeownership more feasible for middle income Americans. That's the first thing we need to do. And luckily, that's something that can be done at a state and local level. It doesn't require federal action, though it would help, obviously, to reduce some of the restrictions on building housing. I think the second is strengthening our safety net. We leave a lot of money on the table because programs like TANF, which is temporary 8 for 80 families, it's our nation's welfare program that is distributed to states, is often very difficult to access and are uptake rates nationwide, hover around 50%. So that's billions and billions of dollars that we don't have access. But further, expanding the types of safety net programs and tax credits that worked successfully during the Biden years. The child tax credit, which was part of the American Rescue Plan in 2021, saw this tax credit, which gave direct cash aid of $3,000 to $3,600 to middle and low income families across the country, remarkably successful program that cut child poverty in half in a single year. That was ultimately not renewed by congressional Republicans and Joe Manchin, unfortunately, the following year. And the catastrophic part of it was that we saw the single largest one-year increase in poverty in American history once this program was rolled back. So I think it's something that we can focus on, hopefully in a bipartisan way, because the results were so successful back in 2021 for reducing poverty. And then finally, I think the earned income tax credit expansion is also really important. I doubt it will be a priority of Republicans in Congress, but it is a really effective tool for putting more money into the pockets of low income workers. Now, I guess essentially getting our safety nets up and getting more money in the pocket of people to not only do daily lives, but to fuel the economy. And one of the biggest things people, I'm sure you get this question a lot, is that just creating yet another program. Why can't we ever get to, I guess, is it just like if nobody wants to, this is going to sound maybe, I guess I'll just say a little 50 days ago, or in which we're a little bit for the question, but why can't we just get to solve the solution? Is it because everybody wants to, I guess, quote unquote, play the game and keep such an inequality disparity to be a winner? I guess you'd just say yes, it's a game, okay. We allow for these policy choices to take place because first off, a lot of people benefit from poverty. There's a lot of money to be made in large swaths of the American public and folks of California in particular, not having enough to meet basic needs. It's very profitable for certain industries. I don't believe it's profitable for the economy at large. I think we all suffer in aggregate, but there are certainly vested interests that spend political money that benefit from the status quo, but I think another piece of this really is the set of underlying beliefs that people use to explain why poverty exists and why it applies to some communities and individuals and not others that make it challenging to make the kinds of policy changes that we know will work. And what I'm getting at really is a foundational belief that many people subscribe to, that poverty is at its core, principally an individual failing. That people are poor because they've made bad choices or because they're not smart enough or because they've done something morally corrupt or they're lazy or whatever it might be. And I think in this world of abundance where we live in the richest state and the richest country and history of the world, we recognize and we should recognize that we have enough abundance to go around and that ultimately we allow poverty to persist because we make policy choices that make poverty and inevitability for at least a segment of the population. So I think the first step is going to be challenging those beliefs. And I want to make a call back to the child tax credit because I think it is just such a clear example of how those beliefs have led to really disastrous policy outcomes. So like I mentioned, we had a single program that was able to cut child poverty in half. Unambiguously positive outcome, we saw workforce participation rates stay fairly stable. People use the money on essential goods like any of us would on gross rates, on school supplies, on utilities, whatever it might be. But there was a deeply held belief and this was expressed by Joe Manchin and I'm sure by other folks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, that giving money to low and middle income families is going to lead to people using the money on drugs and alcohol. There was a stated belief when those members of Congress voted to discontinue the expanded child tax credit. And it didn't matter that we had all the data to the contrary. What mattered more was this deeply ingrained belief that people in poverty are a product of their own choices and nothing else no other structural conditions and ultimately can't be trusted with money. And it's just such a shame because it just demonstrates that the story that we tell is oftentimes far more powerful than the data that people get to see, which was unambiguously positive and made it a slam dunk that we continue programs like child tax credit. So I think if we're being honest about what we're coming up against and why poverty is so entrenched, it really is those underlying beliefs that make it so hard to beat. You know, this makes me want to scream a little bit and say, you know, I get tired when I go to the grocery store now, everybody always like strangers come to me and they're like, look at the eggs. I'm like, I'm sick of hearing about the darn eggs. Well, I mean, but that's another good example, though, right? Like, the everybody talks about these eggs. I'm like, I don't want to hear any more about the eggs. They keep going up. I don't know the chickens haven't changed that I know. Well, but it's such a good illustration, though, of I think our failure as advocates to tell an effective story about how corporate greed operates, right? Like, I think there is this deeply ingrained belief that the economy is this entity that is essentially like a deity, right? Like, it exists without individual agency. It's this God that rules all of us and it's bound by laws of nature that human choices can't impact. And when we have this belief about the economy and this belief that or we've at least not ceded the belief that corporate greed and profiteering of price gouging is a very common feature of the economy, the response that people have towards egg prices being higher is not, wow, these grocery store folks are really trying to rip me off. The conclusion that they draw instead is, well, it just must be inflation due to all of the social safety net spending that we're doing or because of immigrants or whatever it might be. And so I think the pump hasn't been primed sufficiently by folks on our side of the debate for the average American to identify price gouging as the main culprit behind rising egg costs rather than people blaming individuals or the government's social safety net spending. Yes, you just, you know, you said something in that and it made me, I think in pictures and I started to think of like, I don't know if you're into superhero movies or not. A little bit, yeah. I feel like we need one now. But, you know, I started thinking of the government of like this, this, you know, like the ultimate villain that everyone has, and maybe not even a villain, but that it has become its own monster that it just runs itself. That's how people have not seen that they are, I guess, a component of it, right? There's, you know, obviously there's millions and millions and millions of us here, right? But I guess it's the old saying that, you know, oh, John will take care of it, right? Because it's so, you know, I have my own problems. It's so overwhelming. I don't even know what to start. What is this thing even called? You know, I'm, it doesn't really matter. I'm just a clog, a cog in the wheel, right? Right. And, and that, I think you hit on a point that I think that has made the biggest shift, maybe in what used to be the, I'll just say the engine or the fueling power of what the US used to be. If we were going to take, I guess, the saying from MAGA, that I believe is what should be the thing of what used to make America great again, is that we lost that touch of individual, I guess you would say accountability, but not only accountability, but maybe motivation. I don't know if I'm using the right word or agency, right? Like we have control over the direction of country goes, yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. And I would also even say that some of this is by design, right? Like I think if you are part of a political movement, that is hell bent on making government not work. It is in your interest to disempower people's, in their beliefs that they themselves can make government work for themselves in their communities, right? And then you can make government really inefficient. You can make government ineffective and delivering tangible policy aims. And then your original premise that government is the enemy is proven true. So I think we have to be very aware and cautious of the challenges that we're facing because there are folks who are hell bent on making government completely ineffective because it serves their political lines and disempowering us from engaging in government work. Yes. And that's the real danger that is that I don't know if a lot of people, well, I guess I would say a lot of people are asleep, gave up or just, you know, want to do the ostrich and, you know, put their head in the hole, that that is the real, you know, essences that we need to, if people really want not only change, but want to get that spark back because I think that's the, that is the thing I think that is, I'm going to use, I guess, a motion. That's the thing I think that's weighing the heaviest on people's hearts is that that emotion of, I guess the lack of better term of feeling like one nation is gone. It's like, you know, it's a, it's a broken, it's like a broken family relationship, broken marriage. The love is, you know, is waning, right? And, and people, you know, they feel, you know, a little bit, I would say discouraged, but, but beyond discouraged, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a heartbreak of like, I guess you would say a broken dream, right? Right. Yeah, that's right. And so, you know, how we get so the problem is so, so much deeper than just even, you know, yes, policies and, and, and, and government is important, but to really get to, I think the, the heart of the issue, yeah, people need to have like a deeper, a deeper, I guess, healing. And I don't know how, I guess, have you, and I know I just went a little bit woo-woo, but, but how, I guess, since you, you know, you work at Epic, how do you, I guess, get that, that spark and people again? Well, I think it's through a couple of ways. I think one is going up and demonstrating their advocates were willing to come into communities up and down the state to be able to hear people's concerns and their ideas and solutions and be able to elevate those and scale those statewide. And to date, I think we've been to 23 of California's 58 counties. We've been, you know, from the Oregon border down to San Diego and a lot of places in between. I think showing up, both as folks in the advocacy world, but also bringing in elected officials, I think, has been useful for really trying to hammer home the point that people have a voice and agency over the policy decisions that are being made on their behalf. I mean, it's really important. And then I think second, perhaps even more important, is trying to provide a real platform for people to be able to tell their own stories and their own voices. I think a lot of advocates oftentimes to our own detriment, try to filter people's stories through like non-profit speak in a way that oftentimes is playing to the, you know, playing to the audience that we already have rather than trying to push back against the prevailing myths that are so rampant within the broader society. So we do a lot of storytelling work, whether it be a written video, improved documentary last year that highlights people's stories and experiences about what poverty looks like in California in the various ways that it manifests across our various regions. And I think that there is something empowering in the ability to tell your own story and your own words and to demonstrate your own three-dimensionality. Because again, the beliefs about people in poverty are so narrow in the broader culture. And I think for folks who themselves either are not in poverty or have never experienced poverty, the lens through which they see people in poverty is often quite narrow as well as either through a very narrow media prism or frankly through your car window and not much else that's, you know, encompassing of people's broader humanity. So there's power to be founded in storytelling. I think that to the extent that we can continue doing that, I think that's the way that we build power and a movement more broadly in the state. And hopefully in the country as well. Yes. And I like that you are working on, you know, widening the lens on poverty because, you know, I think especially when people think of poverty, they're usually thinking, you know, of the image of your like homeless or, you know, or just, you know, darn near, you can't hardly hardly hardly get, you know, something to eat or things like that. But it's such a wider scope, especially when I always, I guess the best illustration to me has always been San Francisco. Right. Right. Now. And what I mean by that is like, you know, I have friends up there that are like, you know, trying to figure out like, I got to get out. They're like, you know, here I am making over, you know, I'm making like 250,000, but I'm scraping by. They're like, what the heck, right? Yeah. Well, and what are the consequences of that, right? Like people get pushed out and maybe you're somebody who was born and raised in San Francisco and you're doing okay. You're played by the rules and you've gotten an education and you're making decent money, really good money in many cases. But we create economic refugees and the spillover effect of that is, you know, someone starts in San Francisco and they can only afford a place in Oakland and then the prices in Oakland go up because San Francisco didn't build enough housing and then people in Oakland get pushed out into, you know, into Richmond and then so on and so forth and then next thing, you know, people are leaving the state entirely. So I think it's also a lesson that the local politics and the local policy choices have a spillover effect into the broader state and region. Yeah. So that's, you know, well, now I have like two questions in my head. So, you know, because of what I'll just call the San Francisco effect, like, you know, your quote-unquote considered the one, what did they say, the upper, oh, I forget what the term is, but you're like, so you're making lots of money, but you're just still, you know, in the rate of poverty because you can't afford like, you know, a place to live, you can't, you know, done your for groceries. Like, I even had one friend that he found that it was better for him to fly into work at San Francisco is cheaper than living there. Wow. Wow. As he was like, he's like, all big San Francisco money, but he goes, I'll live somewhere else and he goes as cheaper to get up every morning and do a commuter plane and live there. I was like, that's unbelievable. At this life, that's really bad. I was like, I was like, what's the point? He was like, collecting it out. Wow. Wow. That's, that's really remarkable. Right. And so, you know, so we've created this, like, it's, you know, and I, and I laugh because it's like, this is, this is ridiculous, right? Like, when we think about that, right? Like, but also San Francisco, it's kind of the hub of billionaires, right? Well, you know, I mean, you know, you spend any time in San Francisco and you see just the most extreme inequality that you could ever imagine, right? You see people who are living on the street having, you know, going through a nightmare situation and you look up and there's a sales force tower, right? And you have, you know, billion-dollar tech companies basically running the city, which, you know, it's not to integrate people's wealth, but the problem is, is that we're leaving so many people behind, right? And the middle and low-income people have just been pushed out. And there are so many people who I know who are in places in the Bay Area, they themselves are San Francisco natives, but they just couldn't afford to stand their own neighborhood. And it's just such a tragedy that folks have essentially kind of pulled the ladder up behind them because the home valuations in San Francisco have gone so far through the roof. And there's not been a political desire to build enough housing to make things affordable for folks because it comes at the expense of people who benefit from a supply shortage. It's a real shame, it's a real shame because it's a great city. I love spending time in San Francisco, but it just seems so impossible to live there if you don't have like literally millions of dollars to spend. Yeah, so now I'm going to ask the question because for people who are not in California, they're probably thinking these are, you know, these are, you know, interesting problems that these Californians are complaining about, right? But why I guess should other places and states care about what's going on in California? Why is this so important that we focus on poverty specifically in California? Well, I think like in many issues, California tends to be around 10 to 15 years ahead of rest of the country, both for good and for bad. You know, in the 90s, we saw debates around immigration that really were sort of declaring the coal mine for national debates and immigration and sort of where we are now. And in the positive sense, you know, we've been on the forefront of a lot of social issues that have come to shape the rest of the country. But I think in particular, our housing crisis is something that maybe has been free a long time, somewhat you need to California, but it's becoming more typical of especially cities across the rest of the country. And hopefully, what we can do in California is not just be a warning for the problems that come when we don't build enough affordable housing or frankly housing at all income levels, but hopefully we can also demonstrate the solution that if we do decide to build enough housing and we're frankly around a million affordable units short of where we should be as a state, which is a really daunting figure. But if we can overcome that, then I think it can be a model for other states too. But, you know, as a state, we're pushing people out, obviously, people who desire to have the wealth that comes with home ownership are coming to other states. And if they are coming with California incomes, they're going to be able to pay for homes and cash, which is great for them, but it will probably drive up the housing costs for other places as their populations grow and maybe their housing supply stays relatively flat. So, you know, ultimately, if California doesn't solve its problems, especially around housing, it's going to bleed into other states. In the same way that, for example, San Francisco spending decades not regressing its housing shortages as affected other cities within the Bay Area and then within the rest of the state as a whole. So, I just don't think that problems that pertain to the housing market in particular really recognize arbitrary lines like state borders. Ultimately, we all are sort of in the same pool. Yes. And you are speaking of actually people that I know that, you know, left California for Idaho or Texas used to be the, Texas used to specifically Austin. It used to be where all the Californians are like, "I'm moving to Austin. I had enough." That's like, you know, a tagline saying over here. And not so much now. Now, people have expanded from Austin and they go to Idaho or, I guess, what's the latest hot or what was the, oh, what's the other one that Montana actually has been come hot, but then all the stars that was there escape and now they're like, "No, don't do it." Right. But it's just this giant domino effect, right? And ultimately, there has to be some jurisdiction that is willing to build enough housing, even if it's politically unpopular to do so, to keep prices in a way that are at least somewhat sane and give people a fair shot at being able to actually have a nest egg for themselves and for their children. Because otherwise, we're just going to be constantly pushing people and shifting people from one state and one city to the next, because people are always going to prioritize their own economic security over a tie to a geography. At least that's always going to be a big fraction. And if we aren't doing that in California, if we aren't building enough housing, yes, we're going to lose people. But the other reality is that we'll also create a permanent underclass of people who will always be renters and will never be homeowners. And that further entrenches the wealth gap that we already know is incredibly large. So there's no good outcomes for the state as a whole, at least, if we don't build enough housing, again, both affordable housing, subsidized housing, and even market rate housing. But it will certainly benefit the folks who are already winners in the economy, because their home valuations will continue to rise. Yes. And the other thing is not only housing when you were talking, I was thinking about being that California has been, I guess you would say, the tech innovator, or at least the West Coast. Well, we won't forget those people up in Seattle. And so being that is the tech innovator for, I would say, the world. The loss of people has substantial effects, not only for housing, but jobs, economics. I know, obviously, people can work remote and out of the states. But the loss of that power all in one hub could prove quite significant in the long run. Right. Well, it makes it more expensive to recruit talent. If you have an employee who's willing to be geographically mobile and he's choosing between going to Austin and coming to Silicon Valley, you're going to have to have a much higher job offer in terms of pay in order to make it worth their while. Now, granted, this is not to say that Texas does some paradise for homeowners. I mean, they pay a ton in property taxes, and frankly, it oftentimes doesn't balance out. But just the pure economics of it, you're going to have to pay more. And I think Silicon Valley already is this way. We've already seen the effects of this. Their salaries are obviously much higher than other places in the rest of the country, because they have to remain competitive. But if we don't turn this around, it's only going to be exacerbated. Yes. And so, you know, one of the other things since this, you know, obviously is a domino effect that people, you know, are seeing is there's, you know, I'm going to go a little bit kind of wonky and twisted, fixed it is there's a, I'm going to saw us call it the burnout factor, right? I guess that's the thing that I am, I'm feeling from people, there's a burnout factor. And what I mean by that, it's just like, it's the old thing of trying to, you know, roll up a ball up a hill, right? And, you know, I think, I don't know, and I don't want to, I guess I have to say this with a little bit of caution and softness, but people are, you know, they're losing their durability. They're not as durable as maybe they were in, you know, I don't know, 1940, right? And so, you know, I guess I'm, I guess I'm concerned not only, you know, this is in California being that we are, you know, the fifth largest economy that, you know, that's, and that's impressive and that we are going to like lose our motivation. And, and, you know, I don't know, I don't want to say all chaos will break out, but I feel it coming or something. Yeah. Well, I think the burnout is real, and I think it's particularly real for folks who have a hard time envisioning a future of economic security, right? Like, I think it's really easy to find energy and motivation if the future is one where you see optimism, right? And there's some survey data that came out not too long ago, a couple weeks ago that I think showed only a third of Californians believe that the American dream is still, it's still valid, it's still viable. And if you have pessimism over your own future and your own future economic prospects, and those that for your children as well, I think it's very easy to be run down by the challenges that life offers all of us, right? But I think it's a lot easier to find energy motivation to keep pushing forward and continue to innovate and to be on the front foot if your economic prospects and your economic security are sort of shaped by optimism. And so I think what we have to do as advocates really is in addition to putting real points in the board and putting money in people's pockets to change the material conditions is also try to paint a really compelling vision of what the future of the state can look like, where all of us have a shared stake in the abundance of the state in other country, and where people feel like they're going to have a fair shot and a fair opportunity at being able to be upwardly mobile, because I think we're not doing that at the moment. I think that makes us very prone to not just burnout generally, but also prone to political disengagement for allowing demagoguery to really dictate our politics in a way that ultimately is going to be counterproductive against the challenges that we're trying to face. Yeah, and then, you know, when I think about California, the other thing is, you know, I think, well, I don't know if the image is still strong, but, you know, the rest of the United States, we're always like the crazy Californians, right? So I guess we probably still are crazy out here. You know, we're always, they like our innovation, but they're always like, okay, that's what they're doing now. You know, and one of the things I think that makes us kind of, and I'll take out the crazy, but I'll say innovative, or the people who are willing to, you know, push the envelope is that we have a diverse population, right? And so, California, you know, the thing that I love about living here, you know, I live in Southern California, but, you know, it's still even Northern California is there's so much, you know, you can meet so many different types of people. And then, you know, the state itself, like, I don't know a lot of states that you can, you know, one moment be in the mountains, then go to the beach, then, you know, swing by, get a taco, then go up to, you know, a Michelin star restaurant in the evening. And, you know, there's a lot of, it's just there's a lot of, I guess, culture, diversity, and a lot of experiences that you get in, in just one place that I don't think, and, you know, there's very few places, I guess, that you can do all of that. Right. Well, you know, I think we have so many strengths, so many strengths, and so much intellectual capital, and so many, you know, vibrant, powerful industries here, you know, our, our ability to challenge to tackle these challenges is not for, you know, not my virtue of a lack of good things that we have going for us, right. People are always going to want to live here. And my fear is that the desirability of California somewhat insulates us from the consequences of bad policy choices, right, because there's always going to be demand to live here because it's awesome in so many ways. I love being from California, I'm really proud of being from California. But I think about, you know, what happens when, in other places that aren't maybe as appealing on paper, if they screw things up and make it not a not viable place for the average person to live, people vote with their feet in a really obvious way, right. But in California, that's probably not the case, right, like people are always going to want to be here, because it's great for so many reasons. And my worry is that we sometimes get shielded from the blowback and the consequences of a failure to address people's real, real needs and real challenges, because people will give us a long leash. And I don't think we should take that for granted. And my worry is that we're going to eventually push people to their breaking point where they say, you know what, I love living in the beach. I love having access to diversity and in a variety of cuisine and everything else and great public universities and whatever it might be. But ultimately, I need to be able to buy a house. I'm going to move to Boise. And I'll sacrifice all those things because ultimately my economic security and that of my kids is more important than the great features that California has to offer. So I just really don't think we should take, we should take that for granted, that people are always going to, that people would push and push and push without eventually deciding to leave. Because again, we get a long leash by virtue of having all the great things that we have. But I would hate to see us abuse that, abuse that good well. Yes, definitely. Yeah, I call it the, you know, well, I have an internal joke that especially here in Southern California, they're like, well, if we didn't do it today, we can do it tomorrow. That feeling, or go have a talk out. You'll feel better. Right. Yes, which is. And that works for some matter of time, right? Yes, yes, yes. But actually, I was going to get tacos too. I mean, they do, you know, that's how it will go. Yes, yes. So yes, so it's important that, you know, all of us kind of, I guess, will wake up, you know, get out of this, you know, I guess we're, or get out of the fog, I guess, and start seeing that, you know, although, yes, there's a wonderful place to live with so much that it offers that we do have to do the hard work. And so because we really are in a dangerous situation that I don't know is going to turn around anytime quickly because people here also like money, like everywhere. Right. Yes, yes. But yeah, no, my in my world worry is that even more broadly in the national picture, if we aren't able to demonstrate that progressive politics can lead to really tangible positive results for people, it's going to make it harder for us to achieve the kind of political capital that we need to take the big policy swings that could do something as radical as ending poverty across the state and across the country. I think we really struggle, if we struggle to do the basic things, well, it makes it harder for us to do the hard things, at least you can get a chance to do the hard things. So I think, you know, as we're talking about what the future looks like and what the future of poverty in America looks like, I think it's going to be incumbent upon those of us who, you know, are on the political center left or the left who are committed to ending poverty, that when we achieve real political power, that we're demonstrating tangibly positive results because we have to earn people's trust because I think we're starting from a predisposition that people have across the country, that government is not always going to be a force for good, which is the bias that we have to overcome. So there's just real consequences, I think, nationally, if we aren't able to turn things around in California, something that we haven't made really big strides, we have, and we're happy to talk about that. But if we don't ultimately, you know, make things more affordable for folks, if we don't change our status as the state that has the highest poverty rate out of all 50, if we don't make our safety, we're going to access, we're not going to get the mandate to govern at a national level and to take big swings that we need to do. Yes, and so what can the everyday, if you were going to give all this ask for three, what can the be, I guess, everyday Californian do to start working towards ending poverty here? Well, I think that's a great question. The first thing that I would tell people is contribute to telling and reshaping a better story about poverty, its consequences, its causes, and the people experiencing it. I think we have to eliminate the stigma that exists around poverty by, again, shifting away from the narrative that blames people for being poor towards one that identifies the systems and structures that make poverty and inevitability, and really making sure that we're being careful about how we view the people who are experiencing it, because ultimately, if we reflexively blame people for their own condition, we're never going to have the political will to end poverty at a structural level. And so I think that requires spending time in community, I think it requires uplifting the voices of people who are experiencing poverty, and ultimately, hopefully, supporting the organizations that are trying to do that work at scale. And then I think, writ large, particularly with how people interact with government, I think we have to demand tangible results. I think talk is increasingly cheap when it comes to public policy, especially in California, where we talk a really good game and we're really good at espousing our values, but we're not so good at changing the material conditions for people at scale, at least. And so I think we have to demand really tangible results from folks and not be bound to the belief that poverty is always going to be some feature of our economy. There is a belief, I think, that's very widely held, that poverty is an inevitability and that there are always going to be some percentage of the population that experience it. I think we have to reject that out of hand, and I think that we have to demand better results from government, because at the end of the day, there are going to be the ones who have the power and the resources to put enough money into people's pockets to make poverty a thing of the past. And my hope is that generations from now will be able to look back at the work that we're doing today and say, wow, I mean, it seemed inevitable that poverty would end. And hopefully, we have the belief in the same way that we look back in the 1860s and think that, oh, it was inevitable that slavery would end, because it's such a atrocious feature to have in society. I can assure you that historians would say that people in that era did not think that it was an inevitability and that it required a lot of vision and political will and fight to end an awful institution. I think we have to have the same figure that abolitionists did back then towards abolishing poverty today. Yes, well said. And my last and final question for you is going back to Epic. And so now it is 2025. And obviously, we just have, we have a, I'll just call it the changing of the guard coming up. And so what would you say, and, you know, I don't know if you're, you know, waiting to see how things unfold in the first quarter. But what would you say is going to be one of the main focuses in 2025 for Epic? Well, I think we're going to be, it's going to be a little bit of wait and see to a certain extent because I know this for a fact that the state and the legislature and the Department of Finance who set the budget every year are really trying to make sure that we set some money aside to be able to protect the most vulnerable Californians from any action that the federal government might take, particularly for immigrants. And there's going to be a lot of money set aside for engaging in litigation against Trump administration. That's all well and good. It does make our fiscal picture as a state a little bit more challenging than we were hoping for. But that said, the thing that we're focusing a good bulk of our time on is the state's first and nation's largest baby bonds program. It's a program that we got past a couple of years ago that sets a hundred million dollars in one time funding aside and 15 million ongoing funding aside to create state funded trust fund accounts of around $4,500 for around 60,000 young people in the state who are principally either folks who have been in long term foster care or children who were low income and lost a parent or guardian to COVID during the pandemic. They will each get a baby bond starting sometime within the next 12 months, which is really exciting. So we're doing a lot of work with the state with the treasurer's office and other advocates and local partners to make sure that that program hits the ground running next year. That's a really big development because when we're talking a lot about wealth and assets, this is how we cut the racial wealth gap. It's by seeding wealth in the communities and the individuals who have been systemically disinvested in. And I think both foster youth and kids who have been COVID bereaved are a really good place for us to start. Obviously, the hope is over the next decade or so that we can expand that program to include all low income Californians. But at the very least, I think this is a really interesting place for us to start. And it's a tangible impact for the around 58 to 60,000 kids who will be recipients of those funds. So it's a really big win for us and for folks who believe in asset building and for direct cash aid for folks who are the most vulnerable. And we just have to make sure that the program hits the home run because it's a really good opportunity for us to demonstrate that investing in people as a state is not just symbolically valuable, but it's good for all of us in a really tangible way. I absolutely love that because not only, of course, you're helping children and young people, but it is something that everyone, not only in California, but the planet can relate to because we all went through that tragedy. And so it is, I guess, the perfect demonstration of how poverty hits exactly what you were saying that it takes off that, I guess, we'll say stereotype of what people think poverty is because at least we didn't know that we were going to be having this invisible disease that would come in and wipe out millions of people. And, you know, and leave this all locked up for years. So, you know, that itself should, you know, that hits, that should hit home for every single person, you know, entirely, entirely, because they experience it, yes. And I think that, you know, even if you yourself are not a beneficiary of a program like this, what I think is obvious is we're trying to reshape the ways that government can invest in people. And I think if we're really serious about trying to close the wealth gap and the racial wealth gap in particular, which by the way is as wide today as it was when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed nationally, the way that we do that is by providing types of investments and nest eggs that rich kids and middle-income kids probably take for granted, which is, you know, a nest egg of cash that people can access to to build wealth, whether it be startup business or to start to save money for a down payment for a home or startup capital or money for higher education. Those are the kinds of assets and tools that rich kids have easily, right? And if we're able, and it's how they're able to build wealth starting at a very early age, and if we're able to start that process for the most vulnerable kids, which in this case are kids who don't have parents, right, which is how most of us receive any sort of wealth or a leg up, I think it's really, I think it's a really powerful demonstration of what government can do. And I expect that it'll go really well. I have no doubt that the results of this program will differ from the other kinds of baby bonds programs around the country and the guaranteed income pilots, which is slightly different, but somewhat philosophy that we've seen that started in Stockton and have been proliferated throughout the rest of the state and the country that show unambiguously positive results for the people who received those kinds of investments. So I'm really excited to see where it goes, and I'm really excited to be able to have a be a test case that can be expanded to even more low-income kids around the state and around the country. Yes, love it. Thank you, Devon, for your time and insight to learn more about Devin Gray and N Poverty in California. Go to NPovertyINCA.org. Once again, go to NPovertyINCA.org. If you have a passion for an unserved community, a social justice problem, or want to change minds, contact Project Good Work at projectgood.org to start your project of change today. Subscribe to our mailing list at projectgood.org/subscribe to get our episodes and blog articles sent to you each month. To our listeners, thanks for tuning in to Project Good for a focus on what matters. [Music] You
