I wrote another letter to The Economist, but unfortunately the article I wrote about requires a subscription to read. I linked it anyway; all (both?) of my readers already subscribe to The Economist, right?

SIR – “The not-so-Golden State” (May 27) frets about growing poverty and inequality in California, and yet a big part of the answer to the “problem” is right in the article: “With unskilled immigrants pouring in from Latin America…the gap between rich and poor is growing faster in California than anywhere else in America.” But when poor Latin Americans move to California and get richer, both poverty and inequality obviously decrease. Perhaps California appears to have a problem only because the analysis is tied arbitrarily to political borders.

Michael Hartl
Orange, California