10 Things Californians Are Tired of Defending About Their State
The cousin from Ohio starts in before the burgers leave the grill.
Gas prices. Earthquakes. “You couldn’t pay me to live there.”
The Californian at the picnic table just smiles and reaches for the potato salad.
These are the things Californians are tired of defending.
1. “Everyone’s Leaving”
The exodus story is stale.
California’s population sits just under 39.5 million, roughly nine million more people than second-place Texas.
The state added residents three years running through mid-2025, before federal immigration cuts stalled the rebound.
Flat isn’t fleeing.
Californians will take the elbow room wherever the freeway allows it.
2. The Taxes
Yes, the income tax stings at the top. California’s top marginal rate of 13.3% leads the country.
Here’s the half nobody east of Nevada mentions: Proposition 13 caps property taxes, and California’s effective rate of 0.70% lands in the bottom half of states.
A Texan with no income tax and a $6,000 property tax bill isn’t winning the argument as cleanly as they think.
And California charges no state tax on Social Security checks.
Which state costs less depends on what you earn and what you own.
3. The Economy Jokes
In 2025, California passed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, behind only the United States, China, and Germany.
One state. Fourth on Earth.
California’s economy grew 6% in 2024, faster than the national rate, on tech, trade, farming, and film.
Californians don’t bring that up at the reunion.
But the next time somebody calls California a failed state, they might ask which failed state out-produces Japan.
4. The Food Supply Nobody Counts
California grows nearly half of America’s vegetables and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts, per the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).
That dinner table in Iowa mocking California? The salad came from Salinas.
More than 400 commodities come out of the state’s farmland every year.
Almonds, dairy, grapes, lettuce, and strawberries lead the list, and the rotation never stops.
Defending the state at dinner is easier when you grew the dinner.
5. The Traffic
LA traffic is bad. Californians concede that one before you finish saying it.
But the crown moved.
The 2025 INRIX scorecard ranks Los Angeles fourth among U.S. cities for hours lost to congestion, behind Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia.
LA drivers lost about 86 hours to traffic last year, and the total fell while most American cities got worse.
Yell at Chicago for a while.
6. The Weather Bragging
Californians defend the weather by pointing at the range of it.
Death Valley holds the world’s official hottest reading, 134 degrees, set in 1913.
The same state kept Mammoth Mountain’s ski lifts spinning into August twice in the last decade.
Highest point in the contiguous United States, lowest point in North America, one long day’s drive apart.
No other state gets to say any of that.
7. The Earthquakes
Hundreds of California earthquakes reach magnitude 3.0 in a typical year, per the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Only two or three a year grow big enough to threaten damage.
The rest pass unfelt, logged by machines and nobody else.
Building codes here have tightened after every major earthquake since 1933.
Californians did the math a long time ago and kept the ocean view.
8. The Housing Sticker Shock
No defense dodges the number: California’s median home price set a record above $900,000 this year, per the California Association of Realtors.
Californians won’t argue the price.
What they’re tired of explaining is why they stay anyway.
The mortgage buys open windows in January and a garden that produces in December.
Demand is the complaint and the compliment in the same breath.
9. “It’s All LA and San Francisco”
California holds nine national parks, more than any other state.
San Bernardino County alone covers more ground than nine entire states.
Drive Highway 395 up the Eastern Sierra and count the traffic lights. You won’t need a second hand.
Most of California’s map is the part the jokes never mention.
Psst! How much do you know about California? Take our quiz and see if you can score 100%.
Quiz
California Classics
Answer these questions on California history and lore. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
10. The Wine and the Burgers
California makes 81% of American wine.
The state also grows about 90% of the avocados raised on U.S. soil.
And the drive-thru burger is a California invention: In-N-Out opened the first drive-thru hamburger stand in Baldwin Park in 1948.
Founder Harry Snyder wired up the first two-way speaker box himself, and every drive-thru lane in America copies that idea.
Somewhere tonight, a critic of California will order a burger through one without a hint of gratitude.
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